So, I've heard about a nice feature of Paragon HDM 14: If you make a system backup of "PC1" (using any imager, doesn't have to be Paragon's own, could be Acronis, Macrium, Drive Snapshot, Aomei, etc), and restore that backup to "PC2", most of us would say "Of course, that doesn't work". Now Paragon has a feature called "P2P Adjust", that will (quote): "Help you make a Windows 2000 or later operating system bootable on different hardware". This seems like a nice feature to try out. Actually, it will be a "fun" project for me, nothing more (as I also have spent a lot of time creating updated install media for XP/W7/W8.1, and a nice Win8.1SE USB with WinNTSetup etc, to make fully unattended installs of "any" OS). Once again: restoring a "PC1" backup to "PC2" is not of the highest priority for me, still I think it's a cool feature (would be even better if we can add it to a PESE!!)
[Besides, I know of a few cases where this actually *was* a high priority project, in case of failing hardware, etc.]

HDM14 comes with the possibility of creating a Win8.1 PE iso, so it should be possible to add it to our own PESE. This is where I would like you to help. My own abilities only reach as far as this: (1) Download the iso (I have a link for you if you're interested), (2) Create the USB with Rufus (3) Run and test it (4) Copy the "programs" folder from the USB (or from "boot.wim" from the iso) on a different USB of USB HD (5) Start my own Win8PESE (6) Try to run the program files from the other USB

Of course, this would only work if the program would be fully portable... It asks for qtp-mt344.dll, msvcr100.dll and msvcp100.dll. So I copied these files to the "programs" folder of the second USB, then tried again. Now it tells me "hdm.dll" can't be loaded (the file is present in the folder). So this is where's I'm stuck right now. I know, pretty basic stuff, but I just wanted to show that a made a tiny bit of an effort myself, before asking you for help.

Can anybody please give me some more pointers to try to get this little project along? Thanks!!!

Thanks to all, I've also received some stuff by PM, so enough to read...

My first test with this "p2p" feature didn't work yet, but I'm sure I'll get it working someday...
As I said, I only want to do this (partly) for fun, because restoring to dissimilar hardware is not something I would recommend.

SUCCESS! Thanks to SIW!!!
Turns out I only needed one more file: wnaspi32.dll

 

To be honest, I never expected it to be this simple (but had some hope, when I saw a "Loaddrv.exe", this made me think maybe the drivers didn't need to be "pre-installed", like eg. Acronis etc.).

OK, more later, too excited right now.
Thanks again to all!

Thanks for showing us the  quite "Portable" Paragon HD manager 14, there is only wnaspi32.dll to add in system32 or syswow64 ?

About your Q-Drive, I had noted the same thing with an other disk manager (or Y: drive remounted on another letter), following test to choose the one that suited me, I had not gone further.

One more thing about Paragon "killing" a mounted iso: I would still be interested in any tips on that.

I will try to state the problem once again:
- In PE, I have an .iso mounted to a drive letter, eg. Q:
- After starting Paragon HDM14 (or 15 preview), Q: is dismounted and disappears

I have been using Paragon portably like that for years.

No idea what the problem is with your mounted drive, though.

Are you using the OS in Ram thing, or the proper PE build?

I would like to create an HDM plugin as well and am very new to Win7pe. Any chance I could get the script or some more detail in how to build it from the ISO?

Thank you Atari800xl, Lancelot, and Chris R! I really appreciate you guys taking the time to dedicate to this project and all the invaluable tips for making Paragon Portable. I use Paragon daily at my job and also own a copy for use at home. I had previously tried on my own unsuccessfully to get Paragon working in PESE but your instructions worked great! I know this thread hasn't been active for two months but I wanted to share my findings in case anyone else stumbles across this thread later.

I mainly use Paragon HDM 14 Professional at home and Premium at work so those are the versions I have been testing. I have noticed that paragon gets confused when launching if the image was built with OS mode instead of PE mode. It seems to be looking for a registry key as noted in a previous comment and tries to load additional features like Scheduled Backups that cause the program to hang at the splash screen for about a minute. I tried editing the Settings.xml file in Paragon's Program folder to hide the Scheduling tab and get the error to stop happening but it causes it to hang even it Scheduled Backups is hidden from the GUI. I am able to get explauncher.exe to load right away with the menu, but I get an error message when starting launcher.exe, the full Desktop interface for Paragon. The error message says "Task List: Refresh operation failed".  It still works fine once you click OK for the error. I have no issues running Paragon 14 Pro and Premium if built using PE in RAM mode, and just get the minor error in OS in RAM mode. Perhaps the Pro version has more features that the Suite Edition doesn't have that is causing it to get the error message since it thinks its running under a full os and is looking for dependencies. I have tested my builds with both 32 bit and 64 bit using Windows 8.1 and Windows 8.1 with Update media from MSDN and have had the same results with all.

 Paragon 15 seems to hang indefinitely for me with both OS in RAM or PE in RAM, so there must be some differences between the 2015 Preview and the 2015 Pro Final release

I am just grateful to have a working copy of Paragon running in the same PE as all my other tools    Thanks again for everyone contributions and hard work!!

For making a plugin, I am not sure how the licensing goes for sharing the files since it is paid software, but I have been just fine using the PC Packed utility and it has been working great. Maybe we can make a script that would have the user put an original Paragon Boot.wim in a folder, and the script can mount the image, copy the needed files, and prepare it to get around sharing any copyrighted paid paragon files. I could't find an easy way to change the Icon in the start menu for paragon when i was using the PC Packed plugin so I made .BAT file to start explauncher.exe and used a free BAT-To-EXE compiler to embed the Icon. There is probably an easier way but its a small price to pay to have pretty icons in the start menu 

I am not sure why the Q drive keeps unmounting, does that happen for you in both PE in RAM and OS in RAM? I think i remember reading somewhere that Paragon tries to eject to boot media to avoid backing it up accidentally which might be why it keeps ejecting your ISO. Pretty sure there was a launch flag for the Paragon exe that stopped that from happening. Don't quite me on it since it was Paragon 2010 last i tried this but perhaps something like "start paragon.exe /noeject" or "/donteject". You could probably find it by running launcher.exe /? or see if it is in the Paragon User guide or reference manuals.

With my current setup I have Paragon, DaRT, Hardware Diagnostics, Spyware Removal tools with Offline Registry support, and shortcuts via a BAT Menu to launch Windows setup for Windows 7 SP1 and 8.1.1 all running smoothly using PE in RAM. Paragon is truly the cherry on top of it all! 

I am not sure why the Q drive keeps unmounting, does that happen for you in both PE in RAM and OS in RAM? I think i remember reading somewhere that Paragon tries to eject to boot media to avoid backing it up accidentally which might be why it keeps ejecting your ISO. Pretty sure there was a launch flag for the Paragon exe that stopped that from happening. Don't quite me on it since it was Paragon 2010 last i tried this but perhaps something like "start paragon.exe /noeject" or "/donteject". You could probably find it by running launcher.exe /? or see if it is in the Paragon User guide or reference manuals.

Yes there is a parameter to stop ejecting real/virtual CD but it is undocumented. The parameter is "dont_eject". It is better to be used in a batch file so you can edit the bat to something like this ( directly launches "P2P Adjust wizard" which is the only tool i actually use from Paragon ).



Compile this with the help of "Bat2Exe" and embed the icon of your choice. If this exe is pointed as the executable file when creating the plugin, both the icon issue and CD eject issue can be solved.

Hi Atari800xl,

HDM14 comes with the possibility of creating a Win8.1 PE iso, so it should be possible to add it to our own PESE. This is where I would like you to help.
My own abilities only reach as far as this: (1) Download the iso (I have a link for you if you're interested)

Could you post the link.  Thanks for finding these great programs.