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Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset support for different OS's

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I was checking out my search link referrals today on a previous post announcing the availability of MDOP 2009 R2. I noticed an interesting search query that I think warrants clarification.

While we are producing new versions of DaRT, the successive versions arent backwards compatible. So lets make this one clear so everyone knows and understands why.

DaRT 5.0 only supports Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 (no x64 support and no plans to add it either)

DaRT 6.0 only supports Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 (and x64 versions too)

DaRT 6.5 only supports Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 (and x64 versions too)

Something thats also very important to mention here is that while the DaRT 6.0 version will allow you to insert a Windows 7 DVD and indicate it can prepare the image, it actually cant and will not work as you expect. We make sure to prompt and warn you when you try to run DaRT 6.0 on Windows 7.

So the question in your mind probably is why?

The reason is the underlying servicing model and NTFS structures. Windows XP's servicing stack is old school. Windows Vista changed all that with a new component based model, if you want to look around your machine for manifest files (and then look up MSDN) youll get the idea how it works. Also look up a component servicing tool called DISM.exe if youre keen to understand more.

Windows 7 built on Windows Vista's component model but again the servicing stack changed incrementally. Other changes between Windows 7 and Windows Vista included some changes to BitLocker servicing that we had to support.

All this meant we needed to keep the versions very separate.

Any questions? :)

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Javier - yes. Works fine. Just mount the ISO.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Its something we have heard before but probably will not do. There are multiple difficulties here though consider BitLocker partitions where any sort of autodetect will fail until the partition is unlocked and we dont do that till we have booted DaRT.

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2009
    I understand but It still would be nice to have a boot menu so we can select what version or DaRT to use, sometime we go to a computer that won't boot and we are not sure if its xp, vista, 64? if we had one dvd with a boot menu t hat would be nice. ?? any thoughts ?? Mark

  • Anonymous
    November 25, 2009
    DaRT 6.0 or 6.5 support virtual operating systems. For instance could I use it on a virtual Windows 2008 server?