OSFMount versions after 3.1.1001 don't work in Windows 7 x64 using physical emulation

[Skymmer]

Good day!
Hope everybody doing fine here...

I found pretty severe bug in OSFMount v3.1.1002 and v3.1.1003 in Windows 7 x64.
If you try to create RAM disk using Physical type of emulation then you get the following message:

In GUI



In command line

Well, message is the same but inside the cmd, not the message box.
Command line to use:

OSFMount.com -a -t vm -s 4G -o physical,mbr,format:ntfs

Interesting thing that v3.1.1001 is actually works but v3.1.1002 and v3.1.1003 are not.
Tried on another PC and situation is the same.
On Windows 10 the latest version (3.1.1003) works Ok.

Thanks for reading this!

[David (PassMark)]

Thanks for the post. It's been at least 3 years since we have done any testing on Win7.

Microsoft has made it near impossible to have a single device driver that works across many versions of Windows. So the problem you have is likely related to that (an old driver being loaded on Win7, which isn't compatible with the current user interface).

We have no intention of going back to Win7 to continue development. So you might need to stick with the v3.1.1001 release until you upgrade to Win10/11.

We've updated the web page to be more clear about the level of Win7 support in the current release.

[Skymmer]

Thank you for your answer!
I'm really glad that I caught a little piece of your attention and I appreciate it.
But, well, I can't say that I'm glad with your answer )

Honestly speaking, I don't understand this worldwide conspiracy against Windows 7.
Yes, nowadays its kinda legacy operating system but come on - it's still updated and official updates are still coming, like KB5034615 for example.
But instead of widening the range of supported OSes, software authors simply drop the support for ones which marked as legacy by Microsoft.
Actually a lot of geeks still on Windows 7 and correct me if I wrong, but most of the Passmark software is for geeks.

For example 7-zip can be used on Windows 2000 and up to Windows 11 and nobody died from this fact.
Its made using MSVC 6.0 \ MSVC 2008 \ Assembler and its a good proof of simple fact that functionallity, security and compatibility come from your source AND NOT the most recent programming IDE and compiler.
Anydesk written in MSVC 2010 and still supports Windows XP and later.
Drive Snapshot can be used virtually on any Windows core from 2000 to Server 2022 including PE environments and everybody happy with it...

Technically speaking...
You say: "old driver being loaded on Win7, which isn't compatible with the current user interface"

Its a liitle bit unclear to me...
Yes, driver is old but it works.
Its correctly installed and visible in device manager. Below is the output of sc query command:

sc query osfdisk

SERVICE_NAME: osfdisk
TYPE : 1 KERNEL_DRIVER
STATE : 4 RUNNING
(STOPPABLE, NOT_PAUSABLE, IGNORES_SHUTDOWN)
WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0)
CHECKPOINT : 0x0
WAIT_HINT : 0x0

Both GUI and command line interfaces work ok. There are no errors while startup.
So its not about compatibility between software components with OS.
It's about inter-compatibility between components, isn't it ?
I'm pretty sure that its even possible to make a simple 2 byte HEX patch to make control program to think that it has the 1.0.0006 version instead 1.1.0000
Once again correct me if I wrong here.

So, from my point of view, there is no need to rebuild the driver.
Its only needed to either bypass this version checking or add the additional condition or even add some kind of -force command line to forcibly do the job, plus some GUI checkbox if needed.

Shortly speaking: What is the problem to make it work again like it worked just two versions before ?

Well, just my thoughts about it.
Please, excuse me if my words are somehow unpleasant.

[David (PassMark)]

We track OS usage of our benchmarking app. You are Robinson Crusoe (on an island by yourself).

Here is the actual O/S usage data over the last 20 years
Win7 usage (among our customers) is well below 0.3%


Here is the data from the Steam hardware survey. Win 7 is 0.1%

The other 3rd party software you mention doesn't need low level device drivers. Device drivers are hard to code, hard to debug and now impossible to make work across all Windows platforms (you need several different versions). We don't support 32bit anymore for the same reasons.

It just doesn't make sense to invest any technical effort for less than 1% of the market. Especially when there is a older version that works.

Plus this is free software, for which we provide free technical support for. If you are happy to cover the costs of continued Win7 support we would be happy to do it. Let us know.