I cannot see any btrfs partitions

[joshontech]

Windows 10
Version: 20H2
Build: 19042.685

I have winbtrfs installed via chocolaty and I cannot see any btrfs formatted partitions in Windows file manager. It only shows my C drive. I have installed this before and it worked it showed the btrfs drive as D drive and I had no issues. Since than I reinstalled windows and am on a newer version and it will not work at all as if it is not installed.

I posted an issue before but found out that it does not support btrfs formatted hard drives without partitions. So I formatted another drive and created a partition and still no partition shows up.

[maharmstone]

I posted an issue before but found out that it does not support btrfs formatted hard drives without partitions.

That's not true, I don't know where you've got that from.

Did you disable Secure Boot, as it says in the README?

[joshontech]

I thought I was told that sorry for misinformation.

Yes I always have secure boot disabled because linux won't boot with it enabled.

[TheMadHau5]

Chocolatey apparently doesn't install the driver (I found this out a couple of weeks ago) and just extracts it in the chocolatey folder. Please try installing via the release zip file and telling whether that works out.

[maharmstone]

Really? @TheCakeIsNaOH, is this right?

[TheCakeIsNaOH]

@TheMadHau5 @maharmstone

The Chocolatey package does install the driver. It uses pnputil
https://github.com/TheCakeIsNaOH/chocolatey-packages/blob/master/winbtrfs/tools/chocolateyinstall.ps1#L22

---

@joshontech

Yes I always have secure boot disabled because linux won't boot with it enabled.

This is not universally true. Many major distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat, SUSE, Fedora, etc) support secure boot out of the box, and the others generally support it if you enroll your own keys and sign your binaries. And even if you can't use it out of the box. generally due to out of tree drivers (cough Nvidia cough), you can still do your own signing to work with secure boot.

To be fair, for most home users, secure boot is probably not worth the hassle, and it is just easier to turn it off.

[maharmstone]

Cheers

[joshontech]

Chocolatey apparently doesn't install the driver (I found this out a couple of weeks ago) and just extracts it in the chocolatey folder. Please try installing via the release zip file and telling whether that works out.

I will try this again but before I tried out chocolatey I did install it via the normal method of installing. I installed it via the zip on my last install of windows back in 2018.

Regardless I will try this method again thanks.

[joshontech]

@TheMadHau5 @maharmstone

The Chocolatey package does install the driver. It uses pnputil
https://github.com/TheCakeIsNaOH/chocolatey-packages/blob/master/winbtrfs/tools/chocolateyinstall.ps1#L22

---

@joshontech

Yes I always have secure boot disabled because linux won't boot with it enabled.

This is not universally true. Many major distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Redhat, SUSE, Fedora, etc) support secure boot out of the box, and the others generally support it if you enroll your own keys and sign your binaries. And even if you can't use it out of the box. generally due to out of tree drivers (cough Nvidia cough), you can still do your own signing to work with secure boot.

To be fair, for most home users, secure boot is probably not worth the hassle, and it is just easier to turn it off.

You hit the nail on the head with Nvidia that's my graphics card and I don't feel like signing my own because I tend to distrohop although I have been stable on linux mint for about 2 months now.

[TheCakeIsNaOH]

The Chocolatey package does install the driver. It uses pnputil

So I might have spoke too soon. I decided to play around with this, and apparently, pnputil does not consistently work to install the driver. It gets the driver copied, but does not always create the controller.

@maharmstone would you mind playing around with installation through pnputil and seeing where the behavior differs from infdefaultinstall.exe (what right-click -> install uses).

[joshontech]

Ok so installing it via the zip file worked like a charm I guess I need to pop a bug report about the chocolaty install method.

[maharmstone]

Great, I'll close this then.

Erm, @TheCakeIsNaOH - why don't you just change your script to do infdefaultinstall.exe, then?

[TheCakeIsNaOH]

@maharmstone Because infdefaultinstall.exe pops up a message box asking if you want to reboot and I don't know of a way to stop it from doing that. Chocolatey packages are supposed to install without user intervention, so it waiting for the message box to be clicked is a no go. I could use autohotkey or something to click the box automatically, but I would prefer to avoid that if at all possible.

[TheMadHau5]

This might not be a great idea, but what about installing it manually? (i.e. copying the files over and then creating the services)

[sitiom]

@maharmstone Because infdefaultinstall.exe pops up a message box asking if you want to reboot and I don't know of a way to stop it from doing that. Chocolatey packages are supposed to install without user intervention, so it waiting for the message box to be clicked is a no go. I could use autohotkey or something to click the box automatically, but I would prefer to avoid that if at all possible.

@TheCakeIsNaOH Just chiming in, nefcon now has a command to install a driver that emulates the behavior of infdefaultinstall.exe (and it works silently!):

Install file system volume controller driver

.\nefconw --inf-default-install --inf-path "F:\Downloads\btrfs-1.8\btrfs.inf"

[TheCakeIsNaOH]

Thanks for letting me know about that @sitiom, I've opened an issue to investigate switching over to it: TheCakeIsNaOH/chocolatey-packages#23

[nefarius]

Bear in mind we're currently still hardening and tweaking the installation process, especially trying to fix erratic reboot required detection.

[sitiom]

As of https://github.com/maharmstone/btrfs/releases/tag/v1.8.2, installation via pnputil properly works now. @TheCakeIsNaOH Can you test to confirm that it does?

[maharmstone]

That's good to hear, I did wonder whether my changes would fix that. I had to change the INF to a "universal INF" so that it would work with my Windows 11 aarch64 laptop. It's clear that some versions of Windows are fussier about INFs than others, but unfortunately it's not documented which these are.

[sitiom]

That's good to hear, I did wonder whether my changes would fix that. I had to change the INF to a "universal INF" so that it would work with my Windows 11 aarch64 laptop.

That is most likely the case, and I think you should have done that from the start.

[nefarius]

Class filter drivers were always throughout Windows history terribly documented, so I'm not surprised 😉

[TheCakeIsNaOH]

@sitiom I've tested on a clean Windows 10 system, and pnputil seems to be working. There is a v1.8.2 package in moderation, should be listed in a couple of hours.

[maharmstone]

I think you should have done that from the start

Silly me, not foreseeing in 2016 that Microsoft would subtly change how INFs work in 2019. Clearly I have failed as a programmer.