Rollback RX v10.x (Home & Professional)

This is just more HDS ********. They can't fix RRX to accept OS updates so they try to make it sound like it's no big deal.
The OS updates automatically so the harm is done to the computer before you have the option of uninstalling RRX. Uninstalling RRX has always been a hold your breath process anyway. Even if you could somehow uninstall RRX before the patch was made, expect to do the same on all future OS patches as HDS has no clue what each will do to your computer. At some point, you will find yourself with a computer that no longer boots and there will be little you can do to fix it.

 

Masterblaaster-

I am amazed that you are recommending Xeroweight/AX64/Flashback after being so critical of Rollback!

I bought a ton of licenses for that (primarily to support development) but do not use them because the software is still in beta (for years!)... way more issues than RB, IMHO.

Macrium 6 with RDR is probably the only reasonable alternative...

SteveG

PS - Rollback with regular raw imaging is also a decent solution.

 

Hi Sam-

I don't have RB on a Win10 machine... Can you answer the following:

If I did not un-install RB on a Win10 machine, and the update screws things up, can I reboot to the RB recovery screen and go back to a snapshot before the update to get a working machine?

Thanks,
Steve

 

Steven, that happened to a user on the RB Forum recently. Although HDS states you can "probably" do that... that user had to go all the way back to his Baseline before he found a stable system.

But I do imagine "most" users would be able to do as you ask.

The big problem is that with many of those Win10 machines, the update had to shrink the Widows partition and create a new Windows Recovery partition from the freed up space... the original was too small. Rollback usually cannot recover from a resized protected partition very well, especially if any of its snapshot data was in the area of the carved away new Windows Recovery partition.

 

Thanks Froggie!

I am asking because I am planning to install a new copy of RB on a Win10 machine... I will have Windows auto update turned off and keep raw image backups, but in the event MS overrides my settings and forces an update on me, I want to know if I will be able to just revert to before the forced update or if I will have to resort to the image backup.

I cannot understand how that guy would need to go all the way back to the baseline... if any snap works, you would think they all work. I guess it is possible that windows corrupted some of the rollback data when it resized the partition... but the odds that it corrupted the RB data but left the baseline intact seems pretty unbelievable.

Regards,
SteveG

 

You can't if you're not on a domain controlled by a domain controller.

 

MarcP-

I was under the impression that I could set the network connection to "metered" which would essentially stop the updates until I wanted to get them.

Is that no longer the case? (Sorry... My first machine with Win10).

Regards,
SteveG

 

It will delay automatic updates, but won't stop them. And according to this article. only works if you're over WiFi.

http://lifehacker.com/enable-metered-connection-to-delay-windows-10-updates-1723316525

 

Crap... I knew that it only works on Wifi, which is OK for this machine, but I thought it would stop them completely until I logged onto an un-metered network.

I wonder if I can just stop the update service...

 

Microsoft can change any of that anytime through an update. *rim shot* *mic drop* *walks away*

 

How about this:

https://malwaretips.com/threads/win-updates-disabler-v1-0-disable-windows-10-auto-updates.54208/

or this:

http://www.ghacks.net/2015/12/18/two-windows-10-tools-to-block-automatic-updates/

 

That's all up to you. I'm not familiar with that tool.

 

I think I am going to just try turning off the update service and editing the hosts file to block the update servers first...

 

If that's a W10 HOME installation, MicroSloth gives you no way to control those updates... they happen whether you like it or not. Even with W10 Pro you can only DEFER them.

Actually, not so. The way Windows space allocation works is that it constantly uses new space beyond its last allocated block, constantly moving out on to the disk as new DATA (and changes) occur. It won't go back and use old freed up space for quite a while. That means that RBrx snapshotted DATA keeps moving out on the volume as its created... eventually it gets pretty far out there. For something to carve off a chunk of space at the end of that partition juts might affect snapshot DATA, and if any of those snapshots are PARENTs, then the following CHILDREN snaps get bombed as well. BTW, none of that user's snaps were functional, only the Installation/Baseline snapshot was functional. His snaps didn't keep the system from BOOTing, they just had tons of screwed up linkages to the poit the system couldn't even function.

Remember, the Baseline, if disk defragged prior to a RBrx install, will be mostly located towards the beginning of the volume... there's a very good chance it won't be affected by such slicing and dicing.

 

If I understand the inner workings of Rollback correctly (which might not be true) then the Baseline will never be affected by a Windows update which resizes the partition. The Baseline IS the physical Windows file system at the time Rollback was installed (or at the time the user has updated the Baseline). This physical file system is under the control of Windows, and an update even if it resizes the partition should not affect the Baseline.


Cheers
manolito

 

so you can follow my guidelines : https://malwaretips.com/threads/rollback-rx-users-guidelines.53653/

i made a topic in MT to inform new users to optimize the installation of RX. hope it will help you.

 

Mab, normally I would agree with you BUT, since I don't know where (or when) the Windows update process is actually doing that resizing (ext. PE, NT Native API, etc.), I can't assess the effect accurately. If that operation is going on under the "protected" Windows obfuscated FileSystem (rather than the "real" one established at the baseline of RBrx and seen externally via WinPE), I have no idea what effect the RBrx remapping operation has on a process that's chopping up protected partitions... haven't a clue. My guess... it's not very pretty.

I just don't know how RBrx deals with partition size changes that are done under the protected System environment. For example, an RBrx system will not allow me to change the MBR from inside of that system... it goes through the motions but makes no changes. What happens during a partition size change when the resizing application tries to modify the partition table located in the MBR on a Legacy-MBR system? It's these anomalies that I've never worked through even when playing with an RBrx system.

I asked about the updating process in many MicroSloth guru groups and NEVER got a definitive answer as to how the update process was actually being performed... I got the feeling that no one in those groups really knew themselves. Panagiotis has stated in the past that's it's done under the protected RBrx Windows environment... my guess is that's true since these days you can SHRINK your Windows partition under the LIVE system (weren't able to do that in the past). Following a successful SHRINK, you should easily be able to create the new Windows Recovery partition from the freed up unallocated space.

Now that I think about it, that sounds like a good test for a RBrx protected system...

 

I don't understand your question. Flashback/ AX64 have nothing to do with RRX. Two different companies, two different programs completely.
Xeroweight recently released ver 703 of Flashback which is a final V2 build, not beta.

 

Hi Froggie,

yeah, that's the one million dollar question how this partition shrinking is actually done by a Windows update. But if it really happens under the protected RBrx environment then as I understood it so far Rollback would block these changes. Any attempts to modify the baseline (and this should include the partition geometry) are blocked and redirected by the Rollback system driver. Well, that's the theory, who knows what happens in the real world...


Cheers
manolito

 

Well... the real world reports back

If the 1511 W10 update ran under the protected Windows system and used the SHRINK volume feature of Windows to free up what it needed for its new partition, Rollback would have blown the system up in its face, not just failed to BOOT following the update as has been reported by HDS... I just tried this under W7 (same SHRINK as W10).

Following the SHRINK operation (monitoring under "Disk Management"), the Windows partition being shrunk completely disappeared, after about 1-sec the DeskTop disappeared except the wallpaper, and about 5-sec later a BSOD occurred. A reBOOT into the RBrx sub-console detected an "Improper Shutdown," did its thing and brought back up a successfully recoverd System.

Tried once again carving off a larger than 475mB partition... same thing happened 'cept this time, after the "Improper Shutdown" by Rollback, it reBOOTed into a CheckDsk followed by a successful BOOT back into the System.

Clearly the 1511 update process did not use the mechanisms tested above...

 

Froggie-

I understand, but to have the update destroy everything back to the baseline seems unlikely. I would guess that the baseline must not reside in the rollback snaps.

 

I think this may be correct... which is why a long time ago, when you uninstalled RB, you ended up with the baseline!

 

Not a question... just a little confused why you would recommend FB Ver 703 which might be the final version (but based upon history, will probably have some issues) and not recommend Macrium Reflect, which seems to be the most reliable alternative.

 

It does not... it is the original protected system configuration when RBrx was installed. All the snapshots exist elsewhere on the volume.