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Windows PE 1.0

Windows Preinstallation Environment (aka Windows PE, WinPE 1.0) is a lightweight version of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 that is used for the deployment of workstations and servers.

It is intended as a 32-bit replacement for MS-DOS during the installation phase of Windows, and can be booted via PXE, CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or hard disk.

WinPE allows you to install any version of windows using a Windows Share (or SAMBA) of your Windows Installation files.

Copy and rename Windows PE SDI file to /tftpboot/er/plugins/(winna or winnb or winnc)/(winna or winnb or winnc).sdi

Create Windows PE 1.0

This tutorial explains how to Use BartPE to create Windows PE 1.0 with custom tools.

Another very nice project based on Bart's PE and includes a lot of plugins is UBCD4Win and the process is the same

  1. Download BartPE from http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
  2. There is a nice video explaining the basics in http://www.youtube.com/embed/0reKK2ASEaU
  3. We also recommend to use DriverPacks to get NIC and storage support
  4. When using BartPE it is recommended to use Windows Server 2003 SP1 and above or you'll need to replace ramdisk.sys

In order to replace ramdisk.sys:

Expand ramdisk.sy_ ramdisk.sys
  • Move and Replace /tftpboot/ramdisk.sys to i386/system32/drivers/ramdisk.sys

Windows PE is ready, now we need to pack it within SDI file: