Rescue Disk 21.3.6164.0 WinPE Browser does not launch

[rocksteady]

Just Updated to Avast 21.3.2459 and created a new Rescue Disk (USB).
Rescue Disk boots OK. Version is 21.3.6164.0
From the Rescue Disk menu, all items lauch, except "WinPE Browser", which does nothing when menu item is clicked.
I understand this is a new item in Rescue Disk. Was it Beta tested?

[Martin Kudlicka]

Hi rocksteady. We definitely tested this feature in our QA. It was also presented in beta but I didn't notice any feedback for this feature during beta version on this forum. To be sure, if there is any last change, I verified just now and it sill works in 21.3.2459 release.
Could you please run manually from your USB disk Rescue\aswPEBrowser.exe to verify if it works this way? Without rebooting to Rescue Disk, just from your standard Windows installation. If it does, when you reboot to Rescue Disk and start command line tool, what Windows version do you have?
And if you can see on your USB file Rescue\debug.log , could you please post it here? It's Chromium framework debug log, there might be some errors interesting for us.
Thank you.

[rocksteady]

Could you please run manually from your USB disk Rescue\aswPEBrowser.exe to verify if it works this way?

Yes browser runs that way, albeit slow.
I will try and check the other things later and report back after.

[rocksteady]

@Martin Kudlicka
More results:
Rescue Disk, Windows version is 6.2.9200
The debug.log appears empty.

[Martin Kudlicka]

In seems this is bug in creating Rescue Disk iso/usb process - on your PC Rescue Disk component is using already installed WADK toolkit 4.0 (installed by previous version of Rescue Disk component) but aswPEBrowser doesn't work on Windows included in this version of WADK.
This bug doesn't happen on (clean) Windows when there was no WADK installed before - newer version of WADK is installed instead, that's why we didn't find this bug during tests.
We will fix this bug in next release or by update in this release. Thank you.

[rocksteady]

Thanks for confirming the bug.
If I format the USB, then do another Rescue Disk creation, will that then work properly?

[Martin Kudlicka]

No, it won't help the Browser to work. We need to update Rescue Disk component to download specific WADK version even when there is another (older) one installed on PC where Rescue Disk is created.

[Martin Kudlicka]

Hello rocksteady,
if you are interested in workaround solution till fix is released, you can follow these steps:
1) at "Add or remove programs" uninstall
 - Windows Deployment Tools
 - Windows PE x86 x64
 - Windows PE x86 x64 wims
2) with self-defense off delete C:\Program Files\Avast Software\Avast\setup\WinPEToolkit
3) restart Avast Tools service
After these steps you can create Rescue Disk again. Because of uninstalled WinPE tools it will download new one (10.0.17134) and install it. Then you should be able to use aswPEBrowser.

[rocksteady]

OK. Workround noted, but I think I will probably wait for fixed version.

[rocksteady]

@Martin Kudlicka.
Has the Rescue Disk WinPE problem been fixed in new version Avast 21.4 ?

[Martin Kudlicka]

Hello rocksteady,
I believe so. It still doesn't work for you? You should see newer version of Windows in WindowsPE command line.

[rocksteady]

No way of trying it. Cant create USB or get the iso.