Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   After waiting for hours I didn’t receive the activation key via any of the 4 email addresses I used. I can say that installing the app only adds files to the program’s folder, and adds 2 keys to the registry, one for the app & one for uninstall. The portable version, which is initially free, gives you several choices on what type of USB stick you want to create – it lets you create a USB stick for Legacy or UEFI BIOS, but not both, which is unacceptable… A few devices get confused when presented with both choices, but the majority will use the boot files they need, so the USB stick will work with a variety of hardware and the user doesn’t need two USB sticks, nor do they need to figure out which sort of BIOS a device has so they can make the correct choice.

   There really isn’t a good reason why you might need FlashBoot, and additionally the product page makes a few somewhat misleading statements. It talks about transferring an installed copy of Windows, including installed software, to a new device. With Win10 you just need to clone the hard drive on the original system, or restore an image backup, and cross your fingers. Win10 will *try* to find and install any needed drivers, but Microsoft doesn’t have a copy of every driver out there, so in rare cases this won’t work. You’re more likely to run into compatibility problems from software installed by the old device’s OEM, though odds are this won’t be a problem. You will most likely have problems with at least some of your software deactivating – in some cases it might even do things like add registry entries to make reinstallation &/or activation impossible as retribution for trying to pirate the software. That’s because following Microsoft’s cue, very many developers tie hardware IDs to software activation. Some other software companies just keep track of the number of activations per key, so the software needs to be deactivated on your old hardware 1st.

   Transferring a copy of Win7 to new hardware generally just isn’t going to happen, because drivers for things like USB aren’t available to Win7, and without keyboard or mouse you probably can’t add them afterward. Google and you’ll find a few potential workarounds that might or might not work. You can add drivers that should work to a Win7 setup image [.wim file], and there are tools from motherboard manufacturers to easily do that if you won’t want to go through the hassle of mounting the .wim file, adding drivers, then recompressing it. Unlike Win10, Win7 also does not look for new drivers once it’s installed – sometimes it’ll work, but often you need to run a special app to remove the old drivers that were installed, and then I’d put your odds around 50/50.

   FlashBoot does do image backup & restore, but so does Macrium Reflect Free, which has a stellar reputation. Likewise, FlashBoot will create a Windows installation USB stick, but so will the Microsoft tool, & untold millions of users have used it successfully. FlashBoot will let you create a Windows to Go drive, but so will the Much more popular [& free] Rufus. There’s nothing special about a Windows to Go drive – it’s just regular Win10, usually on a MBR rather than GPT drive without the Recovery partition. You can certainly clone an installed copy of Win10 to a USB drive to make a Windows to Go drive, with all of the above potential problems, since software can deactivate, and you’ve got drivers & OEM software installed to increase the odds of compatibility problems. As at least one comment pointed out, USB sticks also kinda stink for Windows to Go – it’s really only workable if you use an SSD in a USB 3 [or faster] housing.

   Related… some of the comments talked about the difficulty of booting to a USB stick or drive nowadays. Most devices have a hot key [often F2 or Delete] that when pressed repeatedly just after turning the device on will enter BIOS setup. One exception is our Lenovo convertible which has a special switch. Note that the device has to be off, not just sleeping or in hibernation. Win10 has a boot menu with options to enter the BIOS setup, but that menu is usually not visible unless Win10 fails to start 3 or 4 times in a row. You can use the free EasyBCD to add a boot menu delay, which will show the boot menu long enough to enter the hotkey for options like the BIOS setup. You can also get into the BIOS setup from Win10: laptopmag[.]com/articles/access-bios-windows-10

   Note: Not every USB stick or drive will work to boot every device – there are possible hardware incompatibilities.

   Note 2: Win10’s boot mgr. can interface with the BIOS and change it. When you’re in the BIOS setup and get to the page where you set boot drive order [the order in which the BIOS checks the drives looking for boot files, & the 1st boot files it finds are then used], you may only see the Win10 boot mgr. as an option – usually restoring default settings works to show all connected drives. Do remember or write down what you see on the page – you *might* have to put it back after booting to a USB stick or drive.

   Posted 3 years ago #
2. 

   gergn
   Member

   When FlashBoot was given away last time, I tested it and bought a licence to clone the non-removable SSD of my laptop to an external USB drive. Next, I installed the clone on a refurbished second-hand HP desktop from 2012. To my amazement I did not need a new Windows 10 Pro licence. But my ABBYY PDF transformer Plus was not activated and licences are not for sale any more. My licence covers two installations: desktop and laptop. But you do need assistance from their help desk if you want to re-install it on a replacement desktop. For scanning, I now use VueScan: it also runs on my Linux machines. And activation is quite simple.

   It took some time before Windows 10 update facility had found and installed the necessary HP drivers on the refurbished desktop. Now, it runs fine.

   A friend of mine used FlashBoot to make an emergency copy of his church Dell laptop, used during services. They thought it wise to replace their nine year old Dell laptop by a newer one. But that new one gave them a lot of problems and Dell's service proved abominable. They used the clone made with FlashBoot of the older Dell to re-install the newer Dell. And keep the USB clone as an emergency at hand, just to be sure. The laptop is operated by a team of volunteers, not all very handy with computers.

   In case the internal USB 2.5" or 3.5"drive can be removed, I use an Ewent USB 3.1 Dual Docking Station to make clones. The two docks are clearly marked source HDD1 and target HDD2, respectively. The only error you can make is using a target HDD that is smaller than the source HDD. It was quite expensive: about $50, taxes included. It is cheaper now, about $40. But it is nice to have a hardware backup of vital machines available.

   If the PC is brand new and you do not want to lose your guarantee by taking the internal drive out for cloning, FlashBoot is a good software alternative.

   Posted 3 years ago #
3. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   Windows activation relies on a secret formula using hardware IDs. A certain number of hardware changes is permissible, but the amount of changes can vary as Microsoft changes their internal policies, e.g. originally you could Not change the hard drive with the free upgrade licenses, but that was later relaxed substantially. You were also required to have a key for every Win10 installation -- now in my experience a single key per device works for however many copies you want to install. Microsoft & fan/news sites like Windows Central have published guidance on switching a Win10 activation from one device to another -- there is an actual procedure -- but being able to do so depends on the type of license you own. Some can be switched, some can be switched more times than others, and some can only be used once, & with those if the hardware changes substantially you need a new license.

   I'm glad that FlashBoot worked for you to transfer a copy of Win10, but Macrium Reflect [free or paid], Paragon HDM, AOMEI 's backup app etc. would also have worked just as well. Win10 will automatically search for and install new drivers as needed when you upgrade or change the hardware it runs on, though it does not always work -- probably one reason Microsoft discontinued support for Windows to Go. It's also not a bad idea to go through Device Mgr. after migrating a copy of Win10 to make sure unneeded drivers are still not in use, and to make sure that old drivers are not used when new ones should be, e.g. I've had Intel systems using AMD drivers and vice versa -- they worked [surprisingly], but not as well as the correct ones.

   Running a copy of a Win10 install from a USB drive can be pretty flexible, though again it doesn't always work on all hardware. Win10 cannot be installed to a USB drive or a bootable .vhd file using the normal Win10 setup -- the discontinued Win10 Windows to Go app, & I think Rufus, WinToUSB [a GOTD], FlashBoot etc. all use Microsoft's DISM, included with Windows, that you can also use to put Win10 on a bootable .vhd file. You can also mount the Win10 image [.wim file that setup, WinPE, & Win10 Recovery/Reset use], and apply Windows Updates, add *some* software, and add driver installation files, then recompress that .wim file and use it for new installations etc. [this was Extremely handy for Win7 since it required hours of updates otherwise]. I use an SSD in a USB 3.0 housing [with UASP] for my Windows to Go Drive, and it works about as well as the native installs. When Win10 was much newer I tried using a USB stick, which while workable, made software installation and updates painful. I found that I could run a clone of the Win10 install on the USB stick in VirtualBox, add whatever software & updates, then move that clone back onto the USB stick.

   I've got a couple of USB 3.0 hard drive docks, and I love them. I prefer using a dock vs. an external housing because external housings with active cooling [fans] are both more rare & expensive. Without them a conventional 3.5" drive can get too hot under sustained use, making them unreliable & sometimes causing complete failure. With my drive dock I simply use a 6" table fan, then monitor temps to make sure using Hard Drive Sentinel or Crystal Disk Info. [Fanless external drives using 3.5" HDDs have a Bad record of failing when trying to restore a backup.] I very rarely clone drives however -- I perform an image backup, then restore that wherever, which gives me a saved backup that's valuable in itself. I also often use backups when working with partitions... I don't trust partition software to move a partition forward on the disk -- *to me* it's safer, faster, & easier to delete old partitions as necessary, then restore partition image backups where I want them and at the size I want them.

   VueScan is both unique, supplying Very many drivers, and Very cool. I have an old Minolta slide & negative scanner that was fairly expensive at the time, and VueScan is about the only way to use it nowadays. I still shudder a little bit when I think of anyone buying anything from Dell, and dealing with their so-called support. I think it's better for your psychological health if you perform a flight test of whatever you bought, throwing it from the top of a tall building to see if it will fly! I bought a monitor from them, which turned out to be defective 3 days after I got it. It took most of a year of CONSTANT back & forth [sometimes 6 times a day!] before I got my money back after returning it. I honestly don't think Abominable does them justice -- I'm EXTREMELY grateful I never had to meet any of these people in real life, because I'm Terribly afraid of what I might have done, they drove me that close to the edge.

   Posted 3 years ago #
4. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   More or less tech notes related to Win10 on USB, in case it interests...

   While there are some unofficial mods out there, e.g. reboot[.]pro, Windows is Windows wherever or whatever it's run from -- Win10 on a USB stick or drive is identical to Win10 installed normally on a hard disk. That's why a copy of Win10 that's been normally installed to a hard disk runs on a bootable .vhd, USB stick/drive etc.

   A normal installation of Win10 uses 4 partitions, a usually 100-300MB FAT32 Boot partition, a 16MB system partition, the Windows partition itself, & a Recovery partition. The only partition absolutely necessary is the Windows partition, and the Recovery partition is normally dropped for USB drives or .vhd files because recovery & reset are unsupported unless Win10's normally installed on a hard disk/SSD. The Win10 boot files can be on the same partition as Windows, but if the BIOS uses UEFI, the boot files must be on a FAT32 [or theoretically FAT compatible] partition. According to the specs, the drive containing the boot files can be MBR or GPT, and Windows to Go drives created in Win10 [before the app to create them was removed] were MBR, BUT, some BIOS are programmed to switch to UEFI when the boot files are on GPT, and Legacy/CSM when they're on MBR.

   The main hassle to putting Win10 on a bootable .vhd file or USB drive is Win10's boot files [BCD], which are a somewhat poorly documented PITA [and why tools like Rufus are so welcome]. Win10 assigns a random GUID to each drive partition, which the boot files store in the BCD registry hive, and use to point to the partition with the copy of Windows you want to start. If/when you copy/clone/migrate Win10 to another drive &/or device, the old boot files usually must be replaced or modified. Regardless the partition they're stored on, Win10 Legacy/CSM boot files use a Boot folder & a file called bootmgr -- the UEFI boot files are in a folder called EFI. Ideally you use both when portability is a concern, since the connected device can then use whatever it wants to, BUT, some devices do get confused when they have a choice, or because of MBR vs GPT.

   DISM is the tool used to copy the Win10 system files to a drive from the setup or installation .wim file, or you can use any means to copy an existing Win10 partition, e.g. cloning, restoring an image backup etc. Note that the boot partition, if you're going to use one, needs to be created first, then the Windows partition, before you add the system files. You can use whatever tool you prefer to create the partitions, including Windows DiskPart. You can use EasyBCD or Windows BCDBoot to add the boot files -- Note that the BCDBoot app was broken with a recent version of Win10, and that may occur again, just in case you try using it and it doesn't seem to work for you. To edit the boot files you can again use EasyBCD, or Windows BCDEdit. EasyBCD, BCDBoot, and BCDEdit will all run from a bootable USB drive, e.g. WinPE.

   One concern I have, and it may just be me -- I've not read or heard it from anyone else -- is based on Windows activation. When Windows is activated, several hardware IDs are recorded and plugged into Microsoft's secret formula. From then on, if any of those IDs change, that too is recorded, and once some threshold is reached [some hardware changes allegedly count more than others], Windows deactivates. Every Win10 activation is tied to the hardware in use when it's activated. A copy of Win10 Pro or Home running on a USB drive will check with Microsoft regarding activation, and the hardware IDs it has access to are the same ones used by Win10 to run natively on that device. Especially if Win10 on the USB drive is associated with the same account used by that natively installed copy of Win10, I'm concerned that it's recorded as a hardware change, and so counts against how many changes you're allowed. If I'm correct, that still may not matter if the threshold is set high enough, but I have no idea what that threshold is, and it's still subject to change at Microsoft's whim. The Windows to Go tool in Win10 only worked with Win10 Enterprise ISOs, and that's what I still use because of my potential deactivation concerns. It won't try to activate, and has no account associated with it. The price for that is it won't connect to OneDrive automatically, I can't use a sign-in PIN, and I can't change the wallpaper. I can live with that.

   docs.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/work-with-windows-images

   docs.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdboot-command-line-options-techref-di

   docs.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdedit-command-line-options

   Posted 3 years ago #

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