XXHighEnd PC with Windows 10 from RAM

[PeterSt]

Hi George,

From my own experience I only know about strange time anomalies in Windows 8 (that being the host PC (Audio PC)). However, this is from the programmer's perspective and how the file date/time of a file runs hours ahead from reality. Time from both PC's is fine in itself, but when the file is copied from the one PC to the other, on the other (the host) it is wrong.
Maybe it is some universal time setting somewhere (this exists).
I did not see this anomaly with Windows 10 (as the host).

Something similar seems to happen (W8 = host) when a freshly (elsewhere) compiled file is put to the host, the host telling that the file is in use. But after 60 seconds (after compile time, as I see it) it is OK.
This too is not in order with a W10 host.

Best regards,
Peter

[Arjan]

I use my iPad for remote connection. (rd client app)
Just reset the date on the audio pc to 1/1/2015 and rebooted.

Only a message on the client verification date but was easy to go around by accepting the connection.

No further issues. Still nice sound.....

Regards, Arjan

[nik.d]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for above, and it relates to further thinking:
My audio PC is not connected to internet ever and contains only OS HDD. Music library is on 2nd PC and the two are connected via wired LAN  - Gbit LAN Card @ 2nd PC, 'Library' or 'Storage' PC.
If we change date to say 2012 @ Music PC or 'Host PC' and we know XXHE writes some info in each album played - what will be the date of that file, 2012 or real date?
Looking at year designation only, not time, time varies due to 'Time Zone' settings - correctly adjusted to local zone or not.

Thanks,
George

[music33]

Hi Peter -
Thanks!
Although changing the date backwards would solve the expiration problem, who knows what other problems it may cause.  Very hard to predict with people using different hardware, different environment and doing slightly different things.  I guess we'll know after 10/10/15 ;-) 

[PeterSt]

If we change date to say 2012 @ Music PC or 'Host PC' and we know XXHE writes some info in each album played - what will be the date of that file, 2012 or real date?

George, pfff ... good one !!
My setup is exactly the same as yours (as it looks) but I can not guess it at the moment. So notice though that the writes you talk about are quite irrelevant to anything, I mean, it can only be about the XXAnalysis.dat files and nothing cares about the date of those.

Still it is a good question, because in my situation (and probably yours too) the PC holding the files *IS* important for good date/time. I mean, I won't set back the date of that one, to have it the same as the Audio PC (assumed that would be of any importance to begin with).

Well, I guess I will set the date of the audio PC to July 28, 2012 in a few minutes and see whether something odd happens in due time.

Btw, Gallery data is also on the "file server" these days (this will be new in 2.03 "more throughout"). So there's a function which can sort Gallery Data on "date/time created" ... that will be confused I supposed. That is, assumed the Audio PC rules over that date.


Peter

[PeterSt]

Audio PC is at July 28, 2012.
Caused an XXAnalysis.dat file to be created / modified ... but that nicely registered on today. So the "file server" rules, regarding this.



Peter

[PeterSt]

Hmm ...

I now see that it is not even announced in this topic that I was not able to create a Clone from the base disk I use for this. Thus apparently this was dealt with elsewhere. This summarized : While I have the OS running from RAM, I was not able to create a working copy (clone) of the disk. This in itself means that it is quite impossible to provide people with an OS upgrade by means of sending out a HDD. Well, I could, but it takes 2 days to create an individual one, so quite unaffordable.
I tried all the means of cloning / imaging software I could find, and nothing worked.

Now with this topic in mind, all about the setting back of the date : Windows 10 build 10074 expiration, this also deals with the impossibility of the system to boot. Set your date too early or too late ...
And now it gets vague ... very very vague ...

What I came here for is to announce that my clone disk works after all. The question for me is why, but maybe I can sort that out later. However, it must be related to me setting back the date in the Audio PC while I never rebooted, only to know much later that a reboot did not work at all. And I set back my date two years - a known date which does not work (at least for most); it is too early. Funnily enough, the fact that I use the Audio PC without its HDD (which initially is used to copy the OS to RAM), allows me to move it to another PC and start cloning it. All the time the Audio PC still works, until I try the clone.
Well, I stop here because it is too vague and too difficult to recall all. Fact is :

Today I was going to implement a new build of Windows 10. What disk to use ? I ran out of new ones. So there's the W10 clone. Let's have that.
I put in the USB pen with the W10 install in the Audio PC, put in the old W10 Cloned disk, think about that I should maybe go into the BIOS to denote the USB pen as first boot device - think it will not find it automatiaclly, but also think that the "new" disk I put in there will not be found as boot device, so I decided to let it go and see whether it finds the USB pen automatically.
It did not.

Of course not, because the disk is not a new disk at all, and it just starts booting from it. Well, it comes up with the Boot Menu and the 3 OSes on there (see earlier in this topic). Of course I see this for the xth time, but I let it go and thought to one more time AGAIN look into it; possible it can be repaired after the cloning operation. That's what was in my mind.
I went elsewhere for a little leak, came back and ... the d*mn thing had booted !?

All I know is that the date is Sept. 2, our Ground Hog Day.
What I also know for dead sure is that the message (blue screen (coming up when it did not work)), was exactly the same as was described by now by others (I can't find where it is). But it tells about a Windows component being expired and needs repair (and then an .exe file mentioned).
So can this be coincidence ?

Oh, I now recall that I had to give up Windows 10 entirely for two weeks or so, because the base file also did not want to boot any more. Hey, I only need to find the date where this original clone was created and the post where I asked Bert whether his system still booted.
But as said - for later to sort out.


Point is : Now I *do* have a working disk for XXHighEnd PC customers. Must I now really continue and try a new Build of Windows 10 to find out it again sounds bad ? or to find out that this can not be free per the means of how I have to create the disk ?
10074 is and remains free and works superbly ...

Comments ?

Peter

[PeterSt]

It took me a while to find this :
Re: XXHighEnd PC with Windows 10 from RAM
(out of all in this same topic as this one and at July 28 announcing that I set back the date two years)

Then in the Clone I can see it was created on August 3 ...

On August 7 Bert is asking me whether I was still able to reboot :
Re: W10 - SQ
With an answer of No.

And all I know for sure is that
a. I never told this out of myself because I didn't make the connection with the set back date, at the time;
b. In there (post after) I also say this :

(but there's some more to tell about this)

... which is about that I had reverted to Windows 8. I didn't tell that either (maybe a month later I told about this "happening").

So what indeed will have happened is that in this period of a week or so I also had created the Clone (didn't do that myself) and I must never have made the connection between that not wanting to boot, and the original (disk) also not wanting to boot any more. I don't even know which one was first.
All I know is that I started to use W8, and that in there at some stage I noticed that the date was back at "today"; a phenomenon that more people have discovered (IIRC).

Anyway concluded (I'm sure) : I *can* make a clone of these rather complicated boot disks - and they even work.


Peter

[acg]

Peter, what size is the clone?

[PeterSt]

Hi Anthony,

Sorry, but I don't understand the question. However, the only answer I can come up with is : 750GB. That's the size of the disk (with 2 OSes on there - one normal (didn't look at the size) and one to go to RAM and which is 11GB).

Does that answer your question perhaps ?

Peter

[arvind]

I found I can connect a NAS directly to a computer using static IP addresses.  My question is if the OS is always loaded into RAM how do I make configuration changes in Windows that will be saved.  I'm obviously missing something.
thanks,
dave

Hi Dave,

I have a WD My Cloud Mirror NAS & I haven't been able to figure out how to connect it to my audio PC, without a router. If you could be so kind enough to guide me on how to go about doing this. The NAS & the audio PC are connected by ethernet cable.

Best regards,

Arvind

[PeterSt]

Arvind,

What brings you the idea that "without router" is more problematic than with ?

Did you try it with router already (just to try) ?

Anyway, it shouldn't be more than connecting the cable, obtain the IP address of the NAS and connect to that IP Address (not the Name of the NAS).
Of course start out in Normal OS, as usual for newly connected devices.

An issue theoretically can be that you need a crossed Ethernet cable because of the direct connection. But I hear people often say that with the modern equipment that is not necessary any more (all senses the crossing-necessity and does so internally). Anyway, normally it always has been so that from PC to router uses normal Ethernet cables, while PC-PC (which IMO would be the same for PC-NAS) requires a crossed cable (connections are different from one end to the other).

I hope this helps you ...
Peter

[AlainGr]

Hi Peter,

It is very possible that it was mentioned somewhere in the forum. And if it is, I will remove this post to avoid confusion.

I have a few questions:
A. Does loading Windows in RAM take a lot of RAM or is 16GB enough ?

B. It is my understanding that any software needs to be in RAM to be executed, so when starting XXHE, an instance of it will be loaded (from a portion of RAM to another). Am I right ?


B. It is my understanding that any executable program needs to be in RAM to be executed, so once the OS is copied in one portion of the RAM (the ramdrive portion), it needs to be copied in another portion of the RAM to be executed ? (maybe this is confusing - I will remove it if not really necessary to understand).

C. Are the ramdrives (Drives A: and B:) still required ? Maybe not the A: drive, since XXHE will already be present in OS RAM, but I guess that the B: drive will still be needed ?

D. Depending on your answer in C, what would be the maximum RAM size of the B: drive ? We still need some RAM space available for the SFS...

I put these questions as a start only

Regards,

Alain 
Edit: After reading the tutorial about the OS ramdrive, I hope that my questions are still valuable, but I will let you be the judge of that (still to avoid confusion for those reading this).

[PeterSt]

Hi Alain,

Very coincidentally (but some times I wonder) I finished a first (further) Tutorial about that minutes ago. Here it is :
The Operating System booted from RAM - General

RAMDisks within that are not in order any more (a moot thing, now worstening).

16GB of RAM is enough as the OS itself occupies about 13GB (no swap file engaged). See below, while it was very easy to make a screen copy of the environment as all was still on-screen from making that Tutorial.

Don't get confused :

Internal space for the OS ("disk") is 13.6GB with 9.7GB used and thus 3.8GB free. This can be compared to your HDD where you made a partition of 13.6GB only and the OS occupying 9,7GB of that. Now you have some free space for temporary files etc. Thus, 3.8GB for your "Playback Drive" files (so to speak because we don't use a Playback Drive explicitly), like from FLAC converted WAV files.

Now, the RAM itself in this case is 16GB, thus 16 - 12.8 is about 3GB of RAM is free. This is normal RAM and in there your "SFS" goes (and more of course). So :
Supposed that normally the OS consumes 1GB in memory and 15GB is free, then now it consumes still 1GB in memory (we can not see that here thus we assume it) and 2GB is free.
This is sufficient for everything that I notice (and I recall that an SFS of 120 just works (or just not works, but something like that).

Peter

[AlainGr]

Peter,

Is there a big trade-off if someone adds 8 or 16GB (total = 24-32GB) ? I know the more RAM, the more noise and consumption, but... ?

Just to know your opinion on this...

Thanks,

Alain