Acronis Customer Expert Support Confirmed To Me That There Is An Issue With TI 2018

@Mustang

Crap. I composed a good part of a reply to your three posts and then lost it when I went to click on "Please check your Private Messages. To get there you need to click on My Account at the top of the forum page." For what ever reason while I was able to see the new message when I clicked on it it would not open. Tried a second browser and the same results. Did it contain additional info that is part of this conversation that you did not want to post in a public forum? If so let me know and I can try sending you a private message with an email address so that you can send it to me that way.

Anyway. Thanks once again for doing all this work. I am going to reply to all three posts here. I did some preliminary work yesterday on your first post starting with, "The latest Intel drivers are showing differently in the FileRepository folder" but did not quite finish it so I was going to post it this morning that is until I saw your other two posts. Buckle up.

POST 1: You wrote: "I installed the latest Intel Graphics 630 driver and my path is at kit126731.inf_amd64_xxxxxxxxxxxxx in the FileRepositoy folder. The driver file is still named igdkmd.sys."

When I went to my FileRepository folder I found this: ki125044.inf_amd64_651cd87a593f43cb and this igdkmd64.sys which identifies as ver. 22.20.16.4836 date modified 10/30/2017. I assumed we had two different versions.

I then fired up the Intel Driver & Support Assistant to see if I had the latest driver or not and it came back with no driver updates available (pic 1) though it did show two networking updates which for the time being I did not install since I thought they had no bearing on this conversation (pic 2.)

Skipping ahead for a moment to your post 3 which begins with "I have good news today" which I did not see until this morning but last night I also arrived at the link you provided:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/98909/Intel-HD-Graphics-630

Back to your post one where you say "I installed the latest Intel Graphics 630 driver" I am assuming that you installed the one that says "2/13/2018 Intel Graphics Driver for Windows [15.65]." (see pic 3) I clicked on that last night and read the "Read Me" and it said:

Downloads for Intel HD Graphics 630
Fall Creator's Update" (version 1709)
22.20.16.4836

Now you might recall that I am still on winver 1703 so that is why I think that the Intel Driver & Support Assistant did not show that I needed an update.

POST 2: You wrote,"I have some bad news for you. I tried building with the latest Intel Graphics 630 driver from the FileRepository folder." I wonder why that did not work. I am assuming that you are doing all this work in a VM or on a test machine identical to your main computer which you were able to successfully create the build.

POST 3: You wrote,"I have good news today." When you wrote, "DO NOT install this driver in your Windows system. Doing so may break the video switching function of your laptop." you are referring to the latest driver at the top of the page with the date of 2/13/2018, right? That was the same conclusion I came to last night and the reason you believe if I downloaded and installed 2/13/2018 it would break my machine is because I am still running 1703 and not 1709 or was there another reason you believed that download was ill advised.

You also write "Scroll down and get version 15.45." I see two versions of 15.45 (see pic 4). Do you recall which version you used that resulted in a successful build?

>Download the exe file not the zip file. I used a free program called 7-zip to extract the files

Copy that after you advise me on which 15.45 to get. With win 7 I always used WINRAR to extract but with win 10  I have just been right clicking and choosing a location to extract to. Unless you thinks it makes a difference I would rather just use the built in windows 10 zip extraction method rather then installing more software.

>When the files extracted, there was a folder called Graphics. All the files needed for the driver to work in WinPE are in the Graphics folder. Use this folder instead of the FileRepository folder in step 7 of my instructions above. Copy all the files including the Lang subfolder. I tested it and it worked. You will know it works when you boot the MVP Tool and see a drvload window on the screen. This window will remain on the screen for about 30 seconds while the driver loads. If you don't see this, the driver did not work.

OK. This weekend I will give it a go and go back to your instructions with the above changes in mind. I will first disable Bitdefender and then I believe it was @Enchantech who suggested that when I was using the Acronis media builder that I should change my display scale to 100%. It currently sits at 250% and that I should change my resolution to 1920 x 1080. It currently sits at 3840 x 2160. You believe I should do this as well before starting this MVP build?

Thanks so much for your hard work.

Dan,

Any of the Intel 630 drivers below version 15.60 will work. It looks like version 15.60 and up is where they broke it as far as WinPE is concerned. Just take the 15.45 at the bottom of the page because it's smaller.

There is no need to change the resolution in Windows before you build the MVP Tool. That will have no effect.

Dan,

You misunderstood about using 7-zip to extract the files. You need to extract the diver files from the EXE file not the ZIP file. Extracting from the Zip file will only give you the EXE file. The built in extraction tool in Windows will not extract the files from the EXE file. That's why you need the 7-Zip utility.

>You misunderstood about using 7-zip to extract the files...That's why you need the 7-Zip utility.

Copy that. Thanks.

I just downloaded the ZIP version of the driver. It extracted to the correct files with the Graphics folder. So download the ZIP file and you will be able to extract using the Windows built in utility. No need to get 7-Zip.

>I just downloaded the ZIP version of the driver. It extracted to the correct files with the Graphics folder. So download the ZIP file and you will be able to extract using the Windows built in utility. No need to get 7-Zip.

My concern was just installing another program but I noticed that there are a couple of portable versions around.

http://download.cnet.com/7-Zip-Portable/3000-2250_4-10834959.html

https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/7-zip_portable

Thanks for the additional info.

Sounds like you guys are on the right track with this!  I've been gone for a couple days, glad to see things progressing with this. 

>Sounds like you guys are on the right track with this!

We'll see by Sunday night : ) Thanks for checking in.

Well it would seem like I am just snake bitten or somewhere along the way I made a mistake following the instructions. Flash drive booted up fine but just like before the top of the GUI was garbled. This time however when the flash drive was booting I did see the DRVLOAD Command Window which is progress I suppose since you may recall before I was getting that message "Display mode requested and windows replied...The graphics mode is not supported" but the DRVLOAD Command Window only lasted a second or two and there was no indication that it was loading any drivers so I guess somewhere along the way I may have done something wrong with the build.

I am enclosing two RTF (WordPad) files (I thought text files might have lost some of the formatting) that more or less indicated how I went about the build. Document1 indicates the steps for the build that I used before replacing the drivers from the downloaded ZIP version 15.45. driver files. Document2 indicates the steps taken along the way after I replaced the driver files and did the build again. One thing to note and I believe I took the correct action is when I got the message during this new build to overwrite files in the MVP folder I choose yes since we were starting over and doing a different build ie. 

Destination file D:\C SSD\Downloads\Acronis PE Builder 2018\MVP_ATIPEBuilder_v143\ISO\Acronis_amd64.iso exists, overwrite it [Y,N]?Y

Maybe I will give it another go next weekend or the week after. I am sure that the problem must be on my end.

I want to thank you all for going above and beyond with the help (and time) that you offered. It is greatly appreciated.

Dan

Opps. I was unable to lupoad the RTF files so I converted them to text as well as pdf. The pdf may be easier to read. Actually after creating the TXT file and looking at it it looks fine.

Dan,

I don't see that you did anything wrong. The only thing I can suggest is to enter your BIOS and see if you can find a setting to disable the Nvidia display. If you can disable it, boot the media again and see if it works. The drvload window should take about 30 seconds to load the driver. There is no output in the window. It just closes when finished. After you boot, open a command window and enter:

net start igfx

see what the system response is. If it responds "The service name is invalid". you know the driver didn't load. If it responds with the requested service has already been started, you know the driver was successfully loaded.

It may just be that you are not going to win with this computer.

Hmmm,  sure was hoping this would work for you Dan.  I would do as Paul suggests to determine if the driver actually loaded or not.  It sounds like it might not have since drvload was not on screen for that long.

If you find that the driver loaded correctly and is working you might try other resolutions supported by your display.  I myself made several changes in resolution prior to settling on 1920x1080. 

Question, did you see any improvement in the True Image window once the media booted?  Was the window a different size then what you got previously?  If the window remained unchanged then I would say the driver did not load properly.

>Hmmm,  sure was hoping this would work for you Dan.

Preach.

> I would do as Paul suggests to determine if the driver actually loaded or not

Copy that.

>If you find that the driver loaded correctly and is working you might try other resolutions supported by your display. 

I can do that from the MVP tool or are you suggesting I make the changes prior to trying another build.

>Question, did you see any improvement in the True Image window once the media booted?  Was the window a different size then what you got previously?

That was a good question. After the DRVLOAD Command Window opened (I thought finally) but then rapidly closed I was dumped into the MVP screen whereas unlike before the True Image screen was opening up minimized in the center of the screen and I had to maximize it this time the True Image scree did not show itself. I had to go to the tool bar on the left hand side to open up True Image. And I believe (old eyes) I did see a difference in the True Image screen once I launched it. The resolution did appear to be better as if it were truly 1920 X 1080 or close to it. You know how when you would boot into safe mode on windows the resolution was awful well the difference was certainly not that striking but to answer that part of your questions I would say yes that the resolution was better the other difference was that the TI screen did not open minimized in the middle of the screen. I had to manually launch it.

I'll give all this a go next weekend. Thank you.

>If you find that the driver loaded correctly and is working you might try other resolutions supported by your display. 

I can do that from the MVP tool or are you suggesting I make the changes prior to trying another build.

You will find the SetRes app running in the WinPE media once booted to it.  You can open it and select other resolutions. If you get the error about your selection not being supported it means that resolution cannot be displayed on your monitor.  Any standard supported 16:9 aspect ratio resolution should work so work your way through each one and check for results.

The WinPE media not launching the TI app after drvload tells me that drvload failed to load the driver, Paul can better answer that but you should do as he suggests to verify the loading of the driver.

Will watch for further updates this coming weekend.

>Will watch for further updates this coming weekend.

Just an update to let you guys know since you have helped me so much that I will not be able to implement the suggestions this weekend offered last week. It would seem that the MS Gods deemed myself and a bunch of other "innocents" unworthy and that now would be a good time to over ride win 10 pro settings and force winver 1709 on us. I know that 1703 was released last April or so but since I got the laptop less then 4 months ago I was just settling in to 1703 and now I have some other stuff to deal with regarding getting 1709 where I want it. I have noticed a difference and I do not know what they did but the system does not seem as responsive this week as it was last week.

Microsoft forces Windows 10 update on PCs that were set up to block it

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/microsoft-forces-windows-10-update-on-pcs-that-were-set-up-to-block-it/

Dan.

Thanks for the update, hope you get Win 10 1709 squared away.

>Thanks for the update...

UPDATE: Last week I received an email from Acronis Customer Support:

Acronis Customer Central
Mar 20 (6 days ago)
to me 
*** Please do not change the subject line of this email; otherwise, your response will not be received. ***

This is to inform you that Developers are still working towards the fix for the issue. We will keep the case open with us and will get back to you once a fix is released for the issue.

Please let me know if you have any further questions. I will be happy to assist you.

So it would appear that they have not forgotten about me : ) Also last week I fired up the last MVP USB stick I created and did a full backup as well as an incremental folder back up. The GUI still sucks like before and every window I open is minimized and only when I hover the mouse over the tool bar am I able to see the different options to choose from but for the time being I am going to let the matter rest and see what Acronis comes up with which might not be until the 2019 release.

I just wanted to thank you guys for all the time and effort. Thanks so much.