I didn't realize this doesn't require unzipping the factory image package.
It does unzip it,
But unzipping is usually quite fast (depending on the PC), it unzips it into Pixel Flasher Configuration Folder / factory_images
During Processing Firmware file phase, and it extracts the boot.img into Pixel Flasher Configuration Folder / boot_images folder
Very nice, and I see @Homeboy76 and I are getting some recognition! Awesome!
Of course, everything the tool does is learnt from those excellent guides, and it practically automates the process, the operations are the same.
I try to
give credit where credit is due.
In fact I encourage beginners to learn the ropes by following the guides instead of using click tools.
One last thing...
This is kinda redundant, as we can just flash /boot right after /system is updated...But, it's possible to replace boot.img in the update package with a patched image. Naturally, it would have to be renamed boot.img so the installer script can find it, but it is indeed possible!
The earlier versions of the product used to do it that way (you can download them from github), basically extract boot, patch boot and replace and finally zip the archive and use the flash_all (-w removed if keep data is selected)
But the zipping process is slow, because the content is large, and if I zip it with low compression to speed it up, then the file is too big, and could potentially cause issues during transfer or flashing, as the full image needs to be transferred to the phone and extracted on the phone during the flashing.
That is what I was referring to extraction in the previous post, that is different from PC side extraction.
This should make it clearer. (this is the output of a typical stock flash)
See how the output starts with extracting product (actually does that for each img in the zip) then you see 3 dots ... and then took n seconds,
That line will only output after those n seconds, and on some systems, I have no idea why, that step can take much longer, which would make the program appear to be hung (but it is not).
Tip.
Either turn on console verbose (bottom left one, not the one next to disable verification)
Do the flashing step, and cancel at the confirmation,
It should output the contents of
flash-phone.bat file
Or if you don't have verbose on you can find it in the expanded factory_images folder.
That will be the file that would be used to flash, and if you inspect you'd see exactly what the program is doing (basically what your guide teaches people)
It flashes the factory image with
--skip-reboot and then sleeps
, flashes the patched boot and reboots to system.
The script adds few additional goodies like targeting the specific phone by id in case multiple devices are attached to the PC, (Google's stock flashing will fail if you have multiple devices attached, PixelFlasher takes care of that), as well as adding flash options like (flash to all slots, disable verity ...)
www.tomshardware.com
next to it.
Indicates that the selection is patched.
