WinNTSetup v5.3.5.2

[JFX]

It's automatically done, if you install in compact or wimboot mode.

Instead of adding lines like: \Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\urschipidea.inf_*\*

to WimBootCompress.ini and keeping the list updated,
it now scan the offline registry to catch all installed drivers that are placed in DriverStore folders.

 

[wimb]

11 minutes ago, JFX said:

It's automatically done, if you install in compact or wimboot mode.

Instead of adding lines like: \Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\urschipidea.inf_*\*

to WimBootCompress.ini and keeping the list updated,
it now scan the offline registry to catch all installed drivers that are placed in DriverStore folders.

 

That is GOOD News  for easier and faster booting since the installed drivers are  uncompressed available 

 

[ZhuMa]

As shown in the figure, the current version of WinNTSetup cannot install the Windows image in the exFAT partition, But in fact, I successfully installed and booted Windows on the exFAT partition many years ago. I was the first to study the exFAT file system boot.
This is a detailed installation tutorial I wrote in Simplified Chinese (because I am from China)
http://bbs.wuyou.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=388226&mobile=no
I appologize for my grammatical mistake because English isn't my main language.Earlier versions of WinNTSetup can indeed install Windows images on non-NTFS partitions. It is known that the last version of this software without file system detection restrictions is 3.8.7.4, but the file system type restrictions have been added in subsequent versions. Now please You lift this restriction.

Edited August 22, 2020 by ZhuMa

[ZhuMa]

In addition, the VHD(X) function of WinNTSetup has always been restricted to only support NTFS partitions, but in fact, Microsoft has already supported the use of VHD(X) files in FAT/exFAT partitions in versions after Windows 10 v1809. Please remove the restriction on file system type of VHD(X) function, thank you!
For booting in exFAT+VHD(X) mode, please refer to: http://bbs.wuyou.net/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=414354&mobile=no

[JFX]

Hi ZhuMa,

these NTFS checks are there to prevent an unbootable or broken Windows installation.
I'm not gonna remove them, but will add a ini file option to disable them in next version.

[ZhuMa]

5 hours ago, JFX said:

Hi ZhuMa,

these NTFS checks are there to prevent an unbootable or broken Windows installation.
I'm not gonna remove them, but will add a ini file option to disable them in next version.

In fact, in most cases, as long as the exFAT partition has Bootmgr PBR, Legacy boot is enough.
Even if there are restrictions, the text in the error popup requires at least a reminder: If you want to boot Windows in an exFAT partition, please disable file system type detection in .ini instead of displaying the puzzling installaction drive invalid!

[jaclaz]

Nice , but I have to ask.

In the good ol' times there were *some reasons*[1] to install Windows on FAT32 and it was actually possible up to Vista (7 had an issue with number of files/directories connected to  WinSxs, that had to be worked around):

 http://reboot.pro/topic/19643-winsxs-hardlinked-files/

exFAT (which I am definitely not very familiar with) should be - essentially - a sort of FAT64, so it may provide as well some advantages (and possibly drawbacks).

ZhuMa, If you have experience with these, can you list what you observed/which usage cases exFAT would be suited for?

jaclaz

[1] various ones, not necesarily good ideas, still ..., including getting rid of file permissions, wider compatibility in some peculiar multiboot setups, in some setups slightly faster data transfer, etc. 

[ZhuMa]

5 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Nice , but I have to ask.

In the good ol' times there were *some reasons*[1] to install Windows on FAT32 and it was actually possible up to Vista (7 had an issue with number of files/directories connected to  WinSxs, that had to be worked around):

 http://reboot.pro/topic/19643-winsxs-hardlinked-files/

exFAT (which I am definitely not very familiar with) should be - essentially - a sort of FAT64, so it may provide as well some advantages (and possibly drawbacks).

ZhuMa, If you have experience with these, can you list what you observed/which usage cases exFAT would be suited for?

jaclaz

[1] various ones, not necesarily good ideas, still ..., including getting rid of file permissions, wider compatibility in some peculiar multiboot setups, in some setups slightly faster data transfer, etc. 

In principle, it is not recommended to use FAT32 when exFAT can be used. FAT32 cannot be installed on systems with Windows 7 or higher because the number of files in the C:\Windows\WinSxS\Manifests directory has exceeded the upper limit of the FAT32 file system. Because the maximum number of files in the same directory in FAT32 can only be 65536, if a long file name is used, the value will be even smaller. However, exFAT is different. The maximum number of files in the same directory can reach 2,796,202, so there will be no problem of the number of files exceeding the limit when used to install Windows 10.

I am a professional data recovery engineer. exFAT and FAT64 are actually the same file system, but the difference between exFAT and FAT32 is not only the ability to store a single file >4GB. exFAT introduces many modern file system features on the bottom layer. For example, exFAT introduced a cluster bitmap management mechanism to solve the problem of low performance of FAT12/16/32 on mass storage devices. In addition, FAT tables formatted by exFAT are forced to 4K alignment by default, which meets the requirements of 4KB minimum IO unit for NAND flash memory. In addition, because exFAT does not have volume logfile records, it reduces the consumption of flash memory read and write bandwidth, so its performance will generally be higher than NTFS.

Some advantages of installing and booting Windows system in exFAT partition:
Optimize volume bitmap management and page block allocation to improve the read and write speed of flash storage media
No volume log records, reducing the number of flash memory read and write operations to extend its service life
The non-authority management mechanism defaults to the highest authority, and management system files no longer report insufficient authority errors
Windows To Go cooperates with platforms such as Mac and Linux to have stronger interaction capabilities and wider compatibility
Allows to allocate larger clusters to improve IO performance
Support TFAT protection mechanism (Win8 only)
Support ECC checksum (metadata only)

[jaclaz]

2 hours ago, ZhuMa said:

Some advantages of installing and booting Windows system in exFAT partition:
Optimize volume bitmap management and page block allocation to improve the read and write speed of flash storage media
No volume log records, reducing the number of flash memory read and write operations to extend its service life
The non-authority management mechanism defaults to the highest authority, and management system files no longer report insufficient authority errors
Windows To Go cooperates with platforms such as Mac and Linux to have stronger interaction capabilities and wider compatibility
Allows to allocate larger clusters to improve IO performance
Support TFAT protection mechanism (Win8 only)
Support ECC checksum (metadata only)

Good, thanks for sharing your experience/opinions  .

jaclaz

[alacran]

@ZhuMa

10x86-19H1 boots fine installed on a exFAT drive at usuall speed, but 10x64-19H1 booting is very slow.

I can't download the exFAT driver for x64 mentioned on your procedure, without it x64 booting is very slow, Could you please load it to Mediafire?

Thanks in advance

alacran

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by alacran

[ZhuMa]

10 minutes ago, alacran said:

@ZhuMa

10x86-19H1 boots fine installed on a exFAT drive at usuall speed, but 10x64-19H1 booting is very slow.

I can't download the exFAT driver for x64 mentioned on your procedure, without it x64 booting is very slow, Could you please load it to Mediafire?

Thanks in advance

alacran

 

I will upload the attachment directly here, but since I can only upload a single attachment of up to 512KB in a post in the MSFN forum, I will use 7-Zip to compress the exFAT driver as two compressed packages for uploading.
This is the first compressed file:

exFAT.7z.001

[ZhuMa]

Just now, ZhuMa said:

I will upload the attachment directly here, but since I can only upload a single attachment of up to 512KB in a post in the MSFN forum, I will use 7-Zip to compress the exFAT driver as two compressed packages for uploading.
This is the first compressed file:

exFAT.7z.001 500 kB · 0 downloads

This is the second compressed file:

exFAT.7z.002

[alacran]

@ZhuMa

Thanks, just replacing the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\exfat.sys with your version, and 10x64-19H1 booted fine.

Just a question:

Does 10 v2004 not require a modded driver?

alacran

Edited August 22, 2020 by alacran

[ZhuMa]

2 hours ago, alacran said:

@ZhuMa

Thanks, just replacing the file C:\Windows\System32\drivers\exfat.sys with your version, and 10x64-19H1 booted fine.

Just a question:

Does 10 v2004 not require a modded driver?

alacran

Yes.
Because Microsoft has added a built-in digital signature to exfat.sys in Win10 20H1 and later systems, there is no need to modify the driver even for 64-bit systems.
In addition, if you are interested, you can provide a translation for this tutorial and freely repost it to other forums, I will thank you very much.

[jaclaz]

@Zhuma

Only to assure you that for *some reasons* your posts on bbs.wuyou are perfectly (and I mean perfectly) understandable in Google translate:

https://translate.google.it/translate?hl=en&tab=wT&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fbbs.wuyou.net%2Fforum.php%3Fmod%3Dviewthread%26tid%3D388226%26mobile%3Dno

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&pto=aue&rurl=translate.google.it&sl=zh-CN&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=http://bbs.wuyou.net/forum.php%3Fmod%3Dviewthread%26tid%3D414353%26mobile%3Dno&usg=ALkJrhgjfNyvUjjX-UYtysAVQ0ENFTYWdw

Unlike many other post by - say - the Authors/Mantainers of grub4dos that I often have to struggle with to understand.

Since I doubt that "suddenly" Google translate has improved so much, it should mean that your posts are written in the original Chinese in an extremely clear way .

@JFX sorry for the OT.

jaclaz