EasyBCD - load and save BCD store weirdness

D

DWalker07

Member
Besides my C drive, I have an active BootRecover partition with a copy of Windows 7.

In Windows 7, when I use EasyBCD and use the "Select BCD Store" option, load the BCD from the BootRecover partition, then make changes, then save them, the "modified" timestamp on the BCD file doesn't update to the current time until I exit the EasyBCD program.

Is this normal? I see that the most recent version of EasyBCD is from August 2010.

I think it's working right, but the timestamp behavior confused me.

Also, the "modified" timestamp on the system BCD seems to get updated to the current time when you boot Windows 7. That's a little confusing too, since the file hasn't been changed, just USED by Windows.

Is that the expected behavior?

Side note: The EasyBCD "Documentation" page at http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/EasyBCD+Documentation+Home doesn't mention Windows 7, but it lists "Longhorn". The page was last updated in 2007.

The "Supported Operating Systems" page at http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Supported+Operating+Systems doesn't list Windows 7. I see that this page was last updated in early 2008.

Will these pages ever get updated, or has Mahmoud Al-Qudsi dropped out? It's a good program except for confusing me on the timestamps.
 
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Where are you looking ?
The latest build is only weeks old,
This forum is the repository for the latest information.
The wiki is large and contains info that was valid when it was written but we've moved on a lot since then.
Neosmart is basically CG.
He writes all the software whilst simultaneously getting himself a degree and a career.
About 4 or 5 other regular posters help out with sorting people's problems and the occasional wiki update (for something that is clearly anachronistic or no longer correct), but there's far too much historic stuff in there for a handful of part-time volunteers to keep continuously updated with every new bell and whistle featured in new builds.
Too much data, too few people, not enough time.
 
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Hi!

First, welcome to the forums.

On the first point: EasyBCD *sometimes* doesn't commit changes in real-time, it depends on where the BCD is stored and a number of other factors for performance reasons. e.g. if you're loading a BCD from a USB, it makes no sense to write to it each and every time - we just coalesce the writes until the very end.

On the second point: EasyBCD doesn't have anything to do with whether the file is modified at boot or not — Windows does. And the file *is* modified at boot, updated with the latest drive ids which may or may not have changed.

With regards to the documentation: updating it now. None of us here really have much time on our hands to update that.

And you can always get the latest builds of EasyBCD at EasyBCD 2.1 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums, as Terry pointed out. You can subscribe to email notifications on new builds by following the link there as well.
 
Thanks for the info. I thought this was an actively-maintained project with lots of volunteers, so it surprised me that the documentation was not up to date. My apologies if that is not the case, and if the project has outdated documentation. I'll keep that in mind.

And thanks for the information on not always committing changes real-time, and since I now see that the system's BCD is updated at boot, that makes things easier to understand (less confusion on my part).

I see that the latest build is only weeks old, but the latest non-beta seems to be 2.0.2 which is almost a year old. That's fine, I just wanted to make sure I knew what was what. I know that volunteer projects can be time-consuming, and I appreciate the effort.


David Walker
 
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Parts of the documentation (Windows XP, Ubuntu, boot repair) are kept up-to-date (or as close to that as possible). The beta builds are always up to date, the stable release can be several months to a year old. The forums are monitored daily, though the moderators and myself might take a day or two to reply.

All in all, it's one of the more actively maintained volunteer-based projects out there, but such is life :smile:
 
Thanks. I tried the latest beta, and it gives much better feedback, especially when loading and saving a separate BCD store. (I always copy my boot partition to a recovery partition on a second drive, then I edit both BCDs to allow booting either partition from either BCD.) Editing and saving the second BCD on the recovery partition is what was confusing me, but the beta gives great feedback.

I'll use the latest beta for now, since it seems to work just fine. Thanks again.
 
My biggest focus (aside from bugfixes) in 2.1 is external BCDs, so glad you like the improvements.
 
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