J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

So the selection of WinPE version (is that the same as WADK?) is
independent of the version of Windows you're running under when you make
the CD? And (whatever the answer to that question) you need to (be under
or select) an 8 or later to have a USB3 driver on the CD?

It's getting to the point, it's hard for me to write
a tutorial with all these details covered off properly :-/

Paul

I can see that. We're all very grateful for the ones you have made!

The software has been variously referred to as WAIK and WADK.

The kits don't all run on WinXP.

Consequently, you cannot "make all possible versions of CD" on WinXP.

The more modern your OS, the more options are open to you.

Windows 8 and Windows 10 have Microsoft drivers for
USB3. So no separate "driver inclusion" step would be required
using the WinPE versions corresponding to those.

I believe at one time, the Macrium CD builder allowed the
user to offer INF drivers, to be added to the disc. So
you could improve hardware coverage (back in the era that
the driver coverage wasn't quite as good).

I've not had a driver problem with any Macrium 6 or Macrium 7 CDs,
in terms of doing anything I needed to do. I managed to get
file sharing backups to work (most of the time). I may have
run into one case where seemingly there was no NIC driver.

But when I returned to WinXP and make the older WAIK version,
that failed. Macrium keeps a list of links on their server,
and of the ten or so files the build process fetches, a couple
were missing (file removed from Microsoft server), and this
"broke" the ability to make a CD. Consequently, I can't make
a CD in WinXP any more, but this does not prevent other CDs
I've made from working.

There is the usual "version consequences", where if you make
a backup with a Macrium 7 CD, you might expect issues trying
to read the .mrimg with a booted OS machine running Macrium 5.

And the pressure being applied by Microsoft messing up NTFS,
means more of the time, I'm forced to use newer versions
to get anything done (avoid error 9 $BITMAP problem).

I think I've even seen file systems with a "$BITMAP problem"
that are at rest. The problem was initially described as
a Win10 problem, where the $BITMAP on disk was not
maintained up to date, and any software reading the
disk directly, would get wrong info (which can be detected).
The idea would be then, that at shutdown, the partition affected
should have correct info written out just before disk closure.
But in one case, I booted a Macrium CD (not patched for error 9),
and it *still* threw an error 9, even though the regular Windows
OS was not running. It could be that the CD in that case,
was using a WinPE it got right off the OS disk itself
during preparation.

That's what I mean about keeping up with this stuff, is
keeping all the exception cases in mind when trying to
do the simplest things. And Microsoft is to blame for this.
Their "nonstandard" "standard" abused NTFS 3.1 spec.
The spec that "hasn't been changed", but "keeps breaking stuff".
Windows 10 users... beware.

Paul