W 8.1 update 1 on SSD - WIMBoot

I don't know whether anybody has working WIMBoot installation of W 8.1 so looking for opinions.
Perhaps people running VM's could compare to traditional install.
link here Microsoft details space-saving WIMBoot for Windows 8.1 | bit-tech.net

WIMBoot prerequisites preclude installs on 'rotational devices'. I don't know if that applies to VM's.

well, in such a case we'll have to wait for data much longer.
i'm watching my 8.1 grow fast, too fast to be comfortable with my decision to get 120g SSD
so when i found out about WIMBoot it immedietely sparked my interest.

Turns out it will run on hyper-V ( Pro version or Enterprise required )

Step-By-Step: Enabling Hyper-V for use on Windows 8.1 - Canadian IT Professionals - Site Home - TechNet Blogs



some scripts to test
Experimenting with WIMBoot using MDT 2013 - Michael Niehaus' Windows and Office deployment ramblings - Site Home - TechNet Blogs

I don't remember what size a clean install of win8.1 was on my original install on my main drive , ,but I have win8.1 enterprise installed on vm virtualbox I creted a 25gig vdrive ,he's how it shows in windows explorer after the install .total disk size - 24.5 ,and free space as 15.9

my computer is not uefi bios ,not sure if that even matters

Edit- it does matter if it uefi,it only works on computers that have uefi

WIMBoot is new in win 8.1 Update 1 - supposed to make working installations on small SSD feasible.

PawelC said:

WIMBoot is new in win 8.1 Update 1 - supposed to make working installations on small SSD feasible.

Click to expand...

yupp thanks , we already know that ,questions is has anyone tried yet and did it actually work

PawelC said:

well, in such a case we'll have to wait for data much longer.
i'm watching my 8.1 grow fast, too fast to be comfortable with my decision to get 120g SSD
so when i found out about WIMBoot it immedietely sparked my interest.

Click to expand...

I'm running win8.1 on a 120gig ssd drive ,and for me space is ok, i store all my personal data on a regular 500gig sata drive ,and I dont run /install many programs anyway ,so I'm ok, but yes it would take long to use up the 120gig if you install a lot of programs and store a lot of data

Good article here: Windows Image File Boot (WIMBoot) Overview

caperjack said:

PawelC said:

well, in such a case we'll have to wait for data much longer.
i'm watching my 8.1 grow fast, too fast to be comfortable with my decision to get 120g SSD
so when i found out about WIMBoot it immedietely sparked my interest.

Click to expand...

I'm running win8.1 on a 120gig ssd drive ,and for me space is ok, i store all my personal data on a regular 500gig sata drive ,and I dont run /install many programs anyway ,so I'm ok, but yes it would take long to use up the 120gig if you install a lot of programs and store a lot of data

Click to expand...

I have a 128 GB SSD for my OS in my laptop, my Data is on a separate 256 GB SSD. Lots of room left on my 128 GB SSD. I don't game on my laptop though. On my desktop PC my OS partition is 128 GB, right now it shows 32 GB free. I have some games installed on that PC which are likely eating up a lot of that space. Right now I'm wishing I had made my OS partition bigger. As they say YMMV.

I'm thinking Boot from WIM will have some tradeoffs. Boot time may be longer and performance may suffer. A lot of OS pointers will be pointed at the WIM file. It doesn't look to be all that easy to setup either. I personally wouldn't attempt it unless I had too. If somebody wants to try it and prove me wrong though I cool with that.

Definitely not much data about working installations on PC's.
Best discussion i've found so far:
Windows 8.1 Update 1 WimBOOT discussion

I have running WIM boot configuration, and it's works great... Everone can do it if he has some skils.

1.I have first lay out the partitions, how I wanted.
2.Than I have deploy the install.wim to the partition I want.
3.I have update everything first, and installl all software. 32 GB was everything.
4.I have capture the partition and made a WIM file, using dism and /wimboot switch. (after it, it was about 14GB only)
5.Than I deploy it on the new way, and made the pointer files ready.
6. I have even make a separate image from steam games, 72 GB packed to 30GB!
7. Everything works, expect Malewarebytes (it's does not support pointer files yet)


A. You get a lot of space back.
B. You can easy reverse in no time to the point you made or deploy the install.wim
C. The load speeds are very good, also for the steam WIM image, very fast loading speed of games!

Important:

to make separate WIMBoot images, you need to add a SET option in CMD
SET WIM_SKIP_WIMBOOT_CHECK=1

If you do not do this, you will get a error, that dism.exe could not find a supported installation!

caperjack said:

PawelC said:

WIMBoot is new in win 8.1 Update 1 - supposed to make working installations on small SSD feasible.

Click to expand...

yupp thanks , we already know that ,questions is has anyone tried yet and did it actually work

Click to expand...

Good for VM on small SSD's and smaller spaced tablets (16GB), otherwise I'd choose a normal install over WIMBoot for simplicity and performance.

Actualy WIMBoot works better on a SSD vs normal installation.

Beside of that, a reset of the operation system take less time. You only deploy the pointer files again on a fresh partition.

I never used Steam on a SSD, because of the size. With the new way of deploy files, I could save a lot of space and also loading of games goes faster than ever before.

Nemix said:

Good for VM on small SSD's and smaller spaced tablets (16GB), otherwise I'd choose a normal install over WIMBoot for simplicity and performance.

Click to expand...

Thanks for posting your experience.

P.

The problem as I understand it, however, is that subsequent to updates being installed the effect of the smaller/compressed install is less obvious - i.e updates need to be imported into the WIM file in order to maintain the smaller footprint.

I've been searching heavily on WIMBoot withSSD's and apparently there's a performance trade off as expected, it would be too good to be true if there wasn't to save that much disk space especially for tablets and lower spaced SSD's.

MY Digital Life Forums has a whole thread on WIMBoot and users who've tested and are running WIMBoot on SSD's, if WIMBoot has no performance trade off then Microsoft would have made WIMBoot as the default installation method automatically with Windows 8.1 Update 1 ISO's from clean installations if a SSD is detected.

There's lots of very miss leading information on this thread, even ReFS if can be booted in future Windows 8.1 major updates example Update 2 rumored for Fall 2014 release date has a slight performance trade off compared to NTFS but I'd rather take ReFS's slight performance hit for it's file corruption resilience as oppose to WIMBoots higher performance hit to precious save disk space on SSD's.

I have recently launched ZIPmagic 12.2, which includes DoubleSpace - a one-click tool with the following benefits for WIMBoot (that you don't get with any other tool or utility at this time):

1. Four Levels of Compression: Three compression grades stronger than WIMBoot
2. On-the-Fly Compression: Convert a full disk without requiring additional storage
3. Compress Apps and Data in Addition to OS: Save space on all files stored on your disk - not just Windows
4. Recompression: Reclaim additional space as apps/files are added/deleted
5. Does Not Require Windows ADK: No need to download and install gigabytes of data
6. Does Not Require Windows PE 5.1: No need to create bootable Windows on external USB
7. One-Click Operation: No need to type endless commands in a console
8. Use All CPU Cores for Compression: Maximize compression speed and space gain
9. 32 bit Windows Support: Compress any x86 system
10. BIOS Support: Not limited to UEFI systems
11. Mechanical Disk Support: Compress any HDD, not just SSDs

That's 11 reasons to use DoubleSpace, or 11 things you wished you could do with WIMBoot, but can't.

I personally use it on my 64 GB Surface Pro, where I developed the tool. Indeed, every invention is born out of a real need

I also tested it on a 7,200 rpm notebook drive. There was, similar to the SSD, only very nominal performance impact.

Your guess is as good as mine as to why Microsoft advertises WIMBoot as being HDD/x86 incompatible.

It totally is.

doubleSpace ,now that brings back memories for me ,my first 386 computer had a 40meg doubleSpaced ,and it was nothing but trouble till i formatted it back to the correct 40meg

Hi there

Sorry to be the "5th" player is a string quartet here - but with cheaper SSD's and cheap fast USB3 sticks and drives do you really NEED this sort of stuff.

IMO a decent 120GB SSD is fine on a tablet if you use those devices and it's easy to carry portable extra auxiliary storage if you want something more.

I'd forget all this "Compressed" disk type of stuff - it only adds to complications - unnecessary ones at that. It always "Breaks" at the most inconvenient point anyway and it's a devil to untangle if you have to recover data.

I remember doing this YEARS ago on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 when HDD space was only available in the order of MB. I remember my first HUGE !!! 20 MB HDD. I soon learned how to re-install windows after trying it - and vowed never to use that type of product again.

Totally unnecessary and pointless these days if you ask me.

People who push this type of Software perhaps should have the brand on it clearly labelled as "YESTERDAY'S TECHNOLOGY TOMORROW" !!.

Cheers
jimbo