No more WinPE

On their 'My downloads' page, Paragon have posted notices about WinPE but the wording is slightly different - ' ... meaning that software vendors will no longer be allowed to offer WinPE media directly.'
So perhaps it affects others as well.

bob

 

I just hope that MS won't go searching hard drives during Malicious Tool updates each month for any WinPE remnants, and axing them from Paragon programs that still use WinPE. For me, that would mean searching on my D drive and eliminating the .wim file I have there to run in the special "Recovery Environment" created to run the .wim without the actual disk. (I uninstalled HDM 11 from my HDD, but still run the program using the .wim that's been added to my boot menu along with Win 7.) Using the actual disk itself should always be safe, since there's nothing MS can do to alter a CD.

 

Maybe I just missedit- but I can't see that quote at the link you provided.

It makes sense, though.

For a long time Acronis have been downloading WAIK to make winpe on your machine - that way they avoid the license fee.

More recently, Easeus and Macrium have been doing a similar thing - even for users of their free versions.

Good idea for Paragon to do it.

I am not sure how that will pan out with windows 8 .

 

Since I have never used WinPE on any system other than a Windows system I don't know what the Paragon pre-built system offers if anything.

I suspect that if you can restore a Linux machine with it then the idea from the MS perspective is to ensure the owner has a licensed copy of Windows which building it by the owner ensures - at least in the simple sense.

 

Not sure what the advantage is to MS.

Perhaps vendors will have to pay to provide a program to make it on your machine.

I don't see how that could be enforced.

That then leaves MS with no income from pe licensing.

Quite odd.

 

Building you own PE with the WAIK or even, IIRC, BartPE required certain Windows files be present on the machine which implies you have a Windows license. Handing out a pre-made one circumvents this.

Anyway this is all speculation and the situation with WinPE will be what it is not necessarily what we think may be a better idea.

 

New e-mail from Paragon:

"New service after April 1st, 2012: Paragon Boot Media Builder!

Don’t worry: you won’t have to do without the convenience of the Paragon WinPE medium that you’re used to. After April 1st, 2012, you can download the Paragon Boot Media Builder which will help you conveniently create your own WinPE CD, DVD or USB stick yourself. Check your MyAccount section to download the Paragon Boot Media Builder as soon as it is available."

 

I don't think that has anything to do with it.

As far as I know - you can't install paragon stuff on linux - not very likely you would want to use the winpe boot disc on a non windows machine.

I don't think there is any need to speculate.

Pretty clear Paragon will do what several other vendors are already doing.

It is no big deal.

 

Great, hope it is not too rigidly tied to a single Paragon product so we can put all we have on one DVD or whatever and it is also a no-brainer to create.

Probably too much to hope for that it would be possible to easily include other programs.

 

You added an .msi to your windows boot menu?

 

I expect I can knock something up that will add extra things to the winpe you make with it.

 

It can be a very big deal for those who aren't in the slightly geeky category if it isn't an easy to use implementation. There are lots of PC users who don't even know what Windows Explorer does.

 

Hopefully, they won't need to know very much.

The boot media builder program should be very simple - other vendors have made very easy ones.

Ideally, it will be just one button that will download waik , mount it, throw paragon in - unmount and run off an iso with mkisofs.exe.

That is all very simple for Paragon to do.

They might even add the .wim to your windows boot menu for you.

It will almost certainly be waik3.0 - if you want 3.1 you would need to download the supplement yourself - geeks only for that I suppose.

 

Vinyl or fiberglass?

 

Sorry...typo on the .msi. It should have read .wim.

 

Wait...there's something that comes with Windows called Windows Explorer? I really gotta check it out. Sounds pretty interesting.

 

I didn't get that new email.

 

Sorry. Only the people who received the mail will get the NEW Paragon Boot Media Builder!.

 

Mail, or no mail, that's the question. Maybe we should relax a bit? I went into My Account, My Downloads and could read this:

We would like to inform you that Microsoft has changed its license conditions, meaning that software vendors will no longer be allowed to offer WinPE media directly.
If you haven't downloaded your WinPE from the Paragon website yet, we recommend you to do so by March 30, 2012. WinPE is the most convenient way to create your bootable media.
After the 30th of March, Paragon will provide you with an alternative tool to create a WinPE boot media yourself. You will of course not lose the convenience of Paragon's WinPE recovery media.

Be aware of the last paragraph. That's in accordance with mossy2103's post #19.

 

I have never made a custom WinPE, but don't you need to have a licensed windows copy in order to make a Custom WinPE? It makes sense from Paragon's point of view that they do not have to pay a fee to Microsoft for each WinPE for a user who already owns a copy of Windows. However, it will cause problems for someone who is, lets say, on windows XP and wants to use a Windows 7 based WinPE with Paragon, as they will not have a license for Windows 7.

This of course depends on whether the custom WinPE builder checks the windows license.

 

And won't it require having the huge WAIK iso, AND WAIK installed? (That's what the Macrium recovery disk required.) Or does this NEW system for WinPE building have nothing to do with WAIK? And what about the WinPE recovery environment built right into HDM 11? Will that be gone in future versions? Or is only the recovery disk that's going to change?

 

You will definitely need WAIK, but you can uninstall it after the creation of the WinPE to save space.

What built-in WinPE are you referring to in v11?

Other vendors like Macrium make users built there own WinPE for the free versions of their softwares, but they still provide you with a prebuilt WinPE if you buy their paid version of software. I think Paragon has decided to make customers built their own WinPE's for all their free and paid software.

 

Thanks. That's what I did after making the Macrium recovery disk. Fortunately, I only moved the iso file to a flash drive, rather than totally deleting it from my HDD, so I'd never have to bother with d/l'ing that 1.7GB file.

Isn't it a WinPE-type recovery environment that HDM 11 kicks down into when restoring a system image if/when you start the restore in Windows? It's been a while since I used the program in Windows, so maybe I'm not referencing it correctly.

 

If you start for example a restore with the paid version in Windows and the PC reboots to do the actual restore the environment loaded appears to be WinPE not Linux.

 

Thanks. That's the way I remembered it.