FreeBSD Disk Image Writing on Windows 11 Pro

rcbsdpge

rcbsdpge

Does anyone by chance know what this photos.exe binary is about
Screenshot 2025-12-18 0510267.png
 
apps.microsoft.com

Microsoft Photos - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

Microsoft Photos is a rich media experience that empowers you to do more with your photos and videos. The newly redesigned and reengineered Photos app is intuitive, elegant, and seamlessly woven into the fabric of Windows. View, organize, and share photos from your PC, OneDrive, iCloud Photos...
apps.microsoft.com

This probably looks for pictures on whatever drive it can get its grubs on, in typical Microsoft fashion.
 
I think that implies the OS tries accessing the iso you are trying to write with Microsoft photos, its absurd though.

I always would use win32diskimager btw, very simple and efficient.
 
Simple fix - don't run consumer windows. The Store shit is much more deep than "I've got process hooked on my files", it is isolated and inaccessible to Administrator under a OS session. Imagine FreeBSD executing a chain of services and programs under a 'limited' user account from rc.d per default, where the files/sockets/process tables are protected by a rootkit.

On a Server 2022 installation the defender can interfere with imaging. It won't happen with FreeBSD but it might happen with imaging older Windows/DOS where some binary may be flagged as a virus. My workaround is to clean the disk using diskpart, before imaging.
 
Zare said:
Simple fix - don't run consumer windows. The Store shit is much more deep than "I've got process hooked on my files", it is isolated and inaccessible to Administrator under a OS session. Imagine FreeBSD executing a chain of services and programs under a 'limited' user account from rc.d per default, where the files/sockets/process tables are protected by a rootkit.

On a Server 2022 installation the defender can interfere with imaging. It won't happen with FreeBSD but it might happen with imaging older Windows/DOS where some binary may be flagged as a virus. My workaround is to clean the disk using diskpart, before imaging.
Click to expand...
Yup I’ve been there. Was reading about elevated privilege access and the layers
 
I’ll run tests next go around on version 15 releases with Rufus. For some reason the Win32DiscImager binary wouldn’t launch at startup.

I deleted and reinstalled it on Windows from the desktop no dice. The only other modification I made was rename the Desktop shortcut.

The amd64-memstick.img images written with Rufus to USB fires up the new installer at installation time. I like the new FreeBSD Installer menu it looks crispy base system developers and engineers 👍
 
Not sure about Photos, but Fedora Linux has a thread about their media writer failing boot checksumming around 4%; I've seen that also from Rufus with both hybrid and dd modes.

Balena Ether is the most consistent tool I've used on Windows (wrote Linux isos and FreeBSD memstick images no problem); I download a win32 portable zip: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/releases/download/v2.1.4/balenaEtcher-win32-x64-2.1.4.zip

I only use Rufus to make Windows installers for MBR/Legacy computers (it handles the boot sector/active thing), but Linux/FreeBSD images get Etcher'd.
 
Update. FreeBSD 15 installation was seamless ✅ and fast! This was a bare metal installation to a Dell Precision mobile workstation. I should add more details for base system development in the community.

I encrypted my SSD hard drive at installation time with the ZFS filesystem (it’s my go-to it’s pretty goated).

My older 5510 workstation model gets an ACPI firmware bug and I’ve long traced it to thermal sensors that monitor for overheating. So I toggled that setting off at
sh: 
/boot/loader.conf
and voila no firmware bug at the terminal.

For some reason network interface is not detected but these are basic setup configurations for me.

Ty FreeBSD community 👍
 
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