Windows recovery environment and bootable USB creator in 200kb

[torphedo]

Wow, this is the largest batchfile I've ever seen! And I thought my 200-ish line one from high school was pushing it. Honestly huge respect for having the dedication to go this far with batch. I knew about the pseudo-function-calling features and a little bit of the weird syntax, but just skimming there's a lot of stuff in here I haven't seen before. Usually people saying "X in Y KiB" are doing some crazy linker shenanigans, so this was refreshing.

Also, "Windows To Go" and "Windows To Stay" are really funny feature names.

[Mogzol]

Speaking of large batch files, if anyone has ever softmodded a Wii, there is a good chance you used ModMii, which is by far the largest batch program I've seen. The main script [1] is a batch file that clocks in at over a megabyte. I used to be pretty into the Wii modding scene and remember talking with the author of that script about random batch things a few times. I can't imagine maintaining a file that big.

[1] https://github.com/modmii/modmii.github.io/blob/master/Suppo...

[Kwpolska]

"Windows To Go" is the official name for a former Windows feature.

Writing a Batch script of any length, let alone 3085 lines, is completely insane with PowerShell being part of the default install.

[Firehawke]

Not to get TOO far off topic, but you just reminded me of the 300+ line batch file I was using for my BBS back in the early 90s. Lots of errorlevel checks to handle door transitions, Fidonet, etc.

You could get some ridiculously complicated batch files if you really needed the added functionality.

[rosywoozlechan]

There's no license specified for what it's worth.

[userbinator]

AFAIK the "Windows Recovery Environment" is actually a stripped-down minimal version of Windows missing most of the normal userland and parts of the kernel, which people have extended and customised in various ways.

[_ol1s]

The overall design was inspired by the simple text based ui of clockworkmod recovery for android. There are zero dependencies as well.

[holysheet]

One of the more impressive shell based tools that I've tried. Fitting into 200 kilobytes is an accomplishment in and of itself. Clever.

[arthur2e5]

Really bad nitpick, but: I cringe at FOO'S-type plurals. Just break out of the uppercase and say VHDXs if you find VHDXS too confusing.

https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/centers/writing/seven-sin...

[firecall]

Looks cool, but what does this do that the standard Windows Recovery Environment Partition doesnt do?

Maybe situations where the standard recovery env is borked? Was that the case in the recent CrowdStrike debacle?

[neRok]

> Was that the case in the recent CrowdStrike debacle?

Nah, it still worked fine on my work laptop and allowed to boot in to safe mode, which also worked (didn't crash).

[4jck]

can I use this to install monitor drivers? make a bootable usb, add the installer onto the bootable usb and install the firmware? https://www.lg.com/au/support/product-support/cs-32GS95UE-B....

I thought about doing it through WINE, but that kinda scares me.

unfortunately my monitor received new firmware only installable through an exe, I only have my linux desktop

[zxexz]

My process for this is usually: - Poke at the EXE for a few hours to days. Sometimes it's just a self-extracting executable and you can just find the raw firmware binary. Sometimes you have to spend a few days relearning the basics of R2/Ghidra, and eventually can grab the firmware. - Then, if you've found it, figure out how to load it. When you think you have an idea, make sure it's really late and you're deliriously tired, so you're SURE you can do it without bricking it. Plus, where's the fun in not bricking it? You can always take that random Pomona SOIC knockoff clip and start dumping random ROMs off whatever chips. - Finally, if you were awake enough to not fall for the previous step - scrap all the work you've done, and commit to spending a while figuring out how to create a bootable windows USB. Or, if you can't get that to work for one of the many possible reasons, borrow a windows laptop. But you're probably too tired for that at this point anyway, so create a windows VM in QEMU, and repeatedly restart your machine as you mess with configs to get passthrough working for whatever you need to get the VM to connect to the device. Launch the utility, start the EXE - it starts working. Get so excited, you accidentally disconnect everything halfway through. Somehow the monitor seems to still work, but you swear there's just something not quite right about it. A few years later, take out the SOIC clip again. (based on an agglomeration of my personal mishaps)

In all likelihood, yes - this project will likely allow you to do that perfectly fine! But I'd be prepared for the installer to be total bloatware that doesn't work or works for most of the process before something goes wrong.

[aspenmayer]

Sometimes simple utilities like this are runnable under FreeDOS/MS-DOS booted from a USB flash drive and/or CD. Other times, you need Win32, and would use something like modern Hiren’s Boot CD, which is Windows 10 based iirc, unlike the original releases which were XP based iirc.

[windozedev]

There's a few ways you could do it, but it's a windows command shell script and only works under windows.

[ChoGGi]

If you're okay with third party software, you can make a bootable usb to update firmware from.

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/

[proneb1rd]

Insane. 3k loc shell script. I admire people that can maintain things like this. For me it’s unapproachable hot mess.

[diggan]

Is it really that unapproachable? I confess, I also prefer files that aren't 3k lines long, but when I have to deal with them, I basically deal with them as I deal with many files, one tab/split per "area" I want to work with. So if I'm working with three areas, I have three splits open that are focused on each area, and jump between the splits. Basically the same as if it was three files.

[letaem77]

What a name!

[heraldgeezer]

Reminds me of stuff like hirens boot cd but this seems more complex to use

[kosolam]

Eli5?

[windozedev]

Extract the zip into a new folder. Insert a w10/w11 disc or mount an ISO. Enter basic mode, it will take you through the steps.

[zx1000]

Dude...