IFR-Formatter repository got removed - README and IFR-Formatter.exe are gone

[Falcosc]

Would it be possible to get IFR-Formatter back? I was easier to read a text file if you want to check if BIOS does support something instead of extracting all the things needed for the UEFI-Editor

[BoringBoredom]

https://github.com/BoringBoredom/UEFI-Editor/blob/fab3b872efccdf67706bfa626888135cf233fefa/old/IFR-Formatter.py
Here is the source of the old python script. It only works with the old IFR-Extractor, and I don't plan to update it for the new one.

[Falcosc]

Thanks for the response, but this isn't what I mean.

I did talk about "https://github.com/BoringBoredom/IFR-Formatter"
It had an IFR-Formatter.exe in the release section, compatible with the https://github.com/LongSoft/Universal-IFR-Extractor/releases.

And in "https://github.com/BoringBoredom/IFR-Formatter" there was also a readme about how to use.

[BoringBoredom]

IFR-Formatter.exe was just the python script compiled with Pyinstaller. The README before the changes can be found here. I removed IFR-Formatter.exe because people were mistaking it for the UEFI Editor, and it was unmaintained and incompatible with the new IFRExtractor anyway.

[Falcosc]

Thank you. What's about old IFR-Extractor vs new IFRExtractor-RS.

I remember that the old one was used for very old platforms. Would it make sense to only use the new one together with the UI based UEFI-Editor to search for feature support?

[BoringBoredom]

I don't know what the exact differences are, other than the new one now also parsing descriptions and each Form Set being written to a separate file. You'd have to ask the IFR-Extractor developer.

[Falcosc]

Is there a string only extract similar to IFR-Formatter to make it easier to find out what features a BIOS provides before you buy the motherboard?
Some features can't be found with text search since you don't know how it is called by each vendor, so the IFR-Extractor output needs to be read line by line to be really sure if it is configurable or not.
I tried to use the UEFI-Editor for that task, but it was much faster to read the old b.txt formatter output. I would even argue that reading the verbose output of IFR-Extractor was easier since UEFI-Editor does not search in values.

Having to install python to run a .py script is already a thing some people are not comfortable with. So it was really nice that the trusted author of the script did host an executable instead of a random person uploading it anywhere.

For example, bifurcation support:

• configuration name is different across vendors
• despite being supported by all CPUs, not all setups have the needed configuration and often not mentioned in any vendor provided documents
• have seen bifurcation support added later via BIOS update, so even more important to check a specific BIOS version.
• needed for simple things like NVMe storage expansion
• bifurcation use-cases like virtualization don't need our help, these users don't have trouble with the IFR-Extractor output

[BoringBoredom]

You can download a JSON file with all the data by pressing the data.json download button in the top left.

[Falcosc]

IFR-Formatter.exe solution was still easier than extracting 4 files for the UEFI Editor. If there is no known similar easy to extract the strings, would you mind hosting the IFR-Formatter.exe? That would be way easier than developing a 2nd Form which only needs the IFR file to extract the Strings.
Or what do you think about the topic of enabling less technical people who have enough knowledge to plug in an NVMe drive into the x16 Slot but not enough confidence to go through scripts.

[BoringBoredom]

The old IFR Extractor, which the Python script depended on, is unsupported by the developer. The Python script has a minor issue (fixed in UEFI Editor) where some entries are missing due to rare newlines in the IFR data.
I'm unwilling to provide a binary for an unsupported and flawed script that depends on an abandoned 3rd party program in the first place.

Here is a PowerShell script that extracts the data from data.json and formats it similar to b.txt. Place format.ps1 in the same folder as data.json, right-click it and press Run with PowerShell.

[Falcosc]

Thank you for going the extra mile, but the main issue is having a repo to point to.

Could you host anything which goes from IFRExtractor-RS to Text? Then I would link to it.
Or reupload the old IFRExtractor to Text solution "IFR-Formatter.exe" because it was good enough even with the missing lines issue.

I need a link which will not be deleted, like you did with the removal of the IFR-Formatter repository links. That would be nice. Thank you.

[kkv0n]

The old IFR Extractor, which the Python script depended on, is unsupported by the developer. The Python script has a minor issue (fixed in UEFI Editor) where some entries are missing due to rare newlines in the IFR data. I'm unwilling to provide a binary for an unsupported and flawed script that depends on an abandoned 3rd party program in the first place.

Here is a PowerShell script that extracts the data from data.json and formats it similar to b.txt. Place format.ps1 in the same folder as data.json, right-click it and press Run with PowerShell.

I honestly think the same as this guy, the uefi editor asks you for 4 files and the ifr-formatter only 1 which is the txt, literally my bios does not have amitse or setupdata, all day looking for the ifr-formatter program that appears in all the tutorials and what a disappointment that it no longer exists, look for each folder with the uefi tools and there is neither amitse nor setupdata, 24 hours only to unlock the hidden options of hp bios

[kkv0n]

btw can you help me with the command line to activate advanced settings/debug options on a usb drive with bootx64.efi
a.txt I know it's something from var_off, or something like that but I have no idea I just need the command to activate the hidden functions

[BoringBoredom]

I updated the README with instructions for the new IFR.txt -> formatted_IFR.txt script (should work on Linux, too). This should suffice.

[Falcosc]

Thanks, smart solution with the NodeJS executable. Didn't know that this would run without dependencies.
I will update all public references owned by my self to use the new way.