General Overview of Vista Installation and Deployment
Last Updated: 9/9/08
- Added SCCM 2007 section, updated unattend.xml to remove bad Unsecurejoin value, Quick and Dirty ImageX pointer added
Introduction
Deployment in Windows Vista has
really changed from previous versions Windows 2000 and XP. Sysprep is now
bundled with the operating system in C:\windows\system32\sysprep. The concept
of an “unattend” files and a “sysprep”
file is no longer distinct. If you are doing a DVD boot, you will name your unattend file autounattend.xml and place that on a USB
stick. If you are doing a network share install you name it unattend.xml and if
you are doing a WDS installation, you name it imageunattend.xml. If you are
doing a Vista push through SMS OSD, you have to make sure the file is called
unattend.xml and that it is placed in C:\windows\panther\unattend. All these files are made from the same
utility: the Windows System Image Manager.
The Windows installation is no
longer “file based”, but “image based”. In past Windows installations, hundreds
of individual files are copied from the install media to the hard drive. Vista
instead copies a “WIM” file to the hard drive and uncompresses
it from there. Microsoft claims this is a more robust form of installation. To
add to the confusion, this image is “file based” and not “sector based”. That
is, a WIM file contains the file structure of a disk, but nothing of its disk
geometry. In order to create or edit a WIM (Windows
Image) file, you use ImageX (which was Ximage until Microsoft was forced
to change the name). This is a command line driven tool included in the
WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit).
ImageX also allows you to “mount” WIM files so they can be
accessed like a regular file system. If you have used Linux, you are probably
already familiar with the process of mounting file systems.
If you want to use Microsoft’s
technologies for deploying Vista, you are going to have to throw out your
conventional thinking on disk imaging. The short version is this: you use
Windows PE to manipulate your partitions (format,
extend, label, etc). Once this done, you can lay down your file based WIM
image with ImageX in Windows PE. That’s pretty much
it, except now you have to get rid of all of your MS-DOS based boot disks, and
Symantec Ghost. You also have so new headaches such as product activation (mandatory for all editions, including volume)
and dealing with User Account Control.
Installing Vista
Windows Vista comes on one DVD and
if you subscribe to Technet, you can also get it on 5
CDs. All versions are on the same disc
except for the Enterprise version which comes on its own DVD. Vista supports installing on FAT16, FAT32 and
NTFS file systems. Vista will give the
user the option to convert the existing FAT partition to NTFS. You would think that Microsoft would have
made the NTFS conversion mandatory given their security initiatives in Vista. The other interesting part of the Vista setup
is that you must create a user account.
Vista puts the user account you create in the administrator’s group and
then disables the built-in administrator account. You can later re-enable the built-in
administrator account yourself. The
other interesting tid bit is that you can set a
password on the built in administrator account, leave it disabled and you’ll
still be able to login with the built-in administrator account in safe mode.
Making a Custom Windows Vista Image
After installing all the necessary
programs for your end user, you probably would like to customize the image so
everything is standardized for all users.
We can do this through local group policy and default user profiles (obviously, you can also do image customization
through domain group policy and having the default profile in the netlogon share of your domain controllers. The method of doing so is beyond the scope of
this article).
Below were steps given by Microsoft MVP Bruce Sanderson in
the Vista beta program for crafting a default user profile. I have modified them slightly due to the fact
that in beta versions of Vista, you actually had to take ownership and delete
files to have the profile copy over correctly which was fixed in RTM.
a)
Click
Start>Control Panel, Add or remove user account; click Continue
b)
Click
Create a new account
c)
Key
an account name – abc
d)
Accept
the default – Standard User – click Create Account
e)
Logoff
f)
Logon
with the new user account – abc
i)
Right
click the Taskbar, select Unlock the Taskbar
ii)
Right
click the Taskbar, select Properties
iii)
Select
the Start Menu tab
iv)
Click
Customize
v)
Set:
(1)
Computer
– Display as menu
(2)
Control
Panel – Display as menu
(3)
Documents
– Don’t display this item
(4)
Music
– Don’t display this item
(5)
Personal
Folder – Don’t display this item
(6)
Pictures
– Don’t display this item
(7)
Add
check mark to Printers
(8)
Add
check mark to Run command
(9)
System
Administration – Display on the All Programs menu and Start menu
(10)
Remove
check mark from Use large icons
vi)
Click
OK
vii)
Click
Start
viii)
Remove
these items:
(1)
Welcome Center
(2)
Windows Media Center
(3)
Windows Ultimate Extras
(4)
Windows Media Player
(5)
Windows Photo Gallery
(6)
Windows Live Messenger Download
(7)
Windows DVD Maker
(8)
Windows Meeting Space
ix)
Logoff
x)
Logon
again as abc
xi)
In
Welcome Center, remove the check mark from Run at startup
xii)
Close
the Welcome Center
xiii)
Logoff
xiv)
Logon
with the (administrative user account) created during the last stages of setup
xv)
Right click Start, select Explore
xvi)
Click
the download pointing triangle beside Organize, select Folder and Search
Options
xvii)
Select
the View tab
(1)
Select the Show Hidden files and folders
(2)
Remove check mark from Hide extensions for
known file types
(3)
Remove the check mark from Hide protected
operating system files (Recommend); click Yes
(4)
Click Apply to Folders; click Yes
(5)
Click OK
xviii)
Copy
abc user profile to Default User profile
(1)
Click Start
(2)
Right click Computer, select Properties
(3)
In the User Profiles frame, click Settings…
(4)
Select computername\abc; click Copy To…
(5)
Click Browse
(6)
Expand:
(a)
Local Disk (C:\)
(b)
Users
(7)
Select Default; click OK
(8)
Under Permitted to use click Change…
(9)
Key Everyone; click OK
(10)
Click
OK
(11)
On
warning that C:\Users\Default already exists, click Yes
(12)
On
the Copy To dialog box, click OK
(13)
Copy
was apparently successful
(14)
Click
OK; Click OK
(15)
Close
the Control Panel, System and Maintenance, System window
xix)
Click
Start, Control Panel, Add or remove user accounts; click Continue
xx)
Click Create a new account
xxi)
Key
an account name – def
xxii)
Accept
the default – Standard User – click Create Account
xxiii)
Logoff
xxiv)
Logon
with the new user account – def
xxv) Observe that the Taskbar and Start menu is as configured in step 8
Local Group Policy Settings
Here
are the local group policies settings I applied in my image for the company I
work for. One of the interesting new
things in Vista is the login screen.
There appears to be no way of turning on a classic login screen. All you get are pretty pictures for user
accounts on the PC. The pictures shown
at login can be customized to whatever corporate picture
you like given in step 2ii:
2)
Local
Group Policy Settings
a)
Computer
Configuration
i)
Windows
Settings
(1)
Security Settings
(a)
Account Policies
(i)
Password
Policies
1.
Maximum Password Age
a.
Set
to 0
(b)
Local
Policies
(i)
User
Rights Assignments
1.
Access this computer from the network
a.
Remove
everyone except Administrators
(c)
Windows
Firewall with Advanced Security
(i)
Click
on Windows Firewall Properties
1.
For
Domain, Private and Public profiles, set Firewall state to Off, and Inbound and
Outbound connections to Allowed
ii)
Administrative
Templates
(1)
Control Panel
(a)
User Accounts
(i)
Apply the default user logon picture to all users
1.
Set
to Enabled
2.
Delete
all the files in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default
Pictures.
3.
Copy
over the company wallpaper as user.bmp and place it into C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User
Account Pictures\
(2)
System
(a)
Logon
(i)
Always use classic logon
1.
Enable
(ii)Turn off Windows
Startup Sound
1.
Enable
(b)
Power Management
(i)
Select an Active Power Plan
1.
Enable
and set to High Performance
(ii)Hard disk settings
1.
Turn
off the hard disk (plugged in)
a.
Disabled
(iii)
Video and Display Settings
1.
Turn
off the display (plugged in)
a.
Disabled
(c)
Remote Assistance
(i)
Solicited
Remote Assistance
1.
Disable
(ii)
Offer
remote Assistance
1.
Disable
(3)
Windows Components
(a)
Internet
Explorer
(i)
Internet
Control Panel
a.
Advanced
Page
i.
Automatically check for Internet Explorer updates
ii.
Disable
iii.
Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is closed
iv.
Enable
b.
Security Page
i.
Internet
Zone
ii.
Use Pop-up blocker
iii.
Disable
(b)
Security
Center
(i)
Turn on Security Center (Domain PCs Only)
1.
Set
to disabled
(c)
Windows
Messenger
(i)
Do not automatically start Windows Messenger initially
1.
Set
to enabled
(ii)
Do not
allow Windows Messenger to be run
1.
Set
to enabled
(d)
Windows Movie Maker
(i)
Do not
allow Windows Movie Maker to run
1.
Set
to enabled
(e)
Windows Sidebar
(i)
Turn off Windows Sidebar
1.
Set
to enabled
(f)
Windows Update
(i)
Configure Automatic Updates
1.
Set
to disabled
b)
User
Configuration
i)
Administrative
Templates
(1)
Control Panel
(a)
Display
1.
Hide screen saver tab
2.
Enable
(ii)Prevent changing
wallpaper
1.
Enable
(2)
Desktop
(a)Desktop Wallpaper
(i)
Enable
and set path to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp
ii)
Windows
Settings
(1)
Internet Explorer Maintenance
(a)
Browser
User Interface
(i)
Browser Title
1.
Set
to “Your Company”
(b)
URLS
(i)
Favorites and Links
1.
Add
crm.yourcompany.com
2.
Add
mail.yourcompany.com
(ii)
Important
URLs
1.
Home
Page URL
a.
Set
to http://www.yourcompany.com
Setting Up Sysprep
You
are probably familiar with setting up a SYSPREP.INF file for Windows 2000/XP. Things are a tad different in Windows
Vista. To make our sysprep
file, we are going to install the WAIK to get access to the Windows System
Image Manager. After you get done
installing the WAIK (more detailed
instructions on installing the WAIK are given later on in the section “Turning
Your Work into a WIM file”), you will load the Windows System Image
Manager. I’ve provided my own
unattend.xml file to get things started.
Upon opening this file open in the SIM, it will complain that it cannot
find some WIM file. That’s OK. In the left pane of the screen, you should be
able select your own WIM file. This
unattend.xml file was created with the Enterprise version of Vista, but you
should be able to use it with any version.
Twiddle your thumbs as it builds a new catalog for your WIM. Note that if your WIM is read-only or is on
read-only media, the creation of the catalog will fail.
There
are several phases that Vista goes through during installation. The first phase is the Windows PE
(Pre-installation Environment) phase.
During this phase, we can make partitions, format disks and convert file
systems. In my unattend.xml file, I have
specified that Vista should be installed to Disk 0, Partition 1. If you are using the BDD 2007 or SMS 2003,
the deployment scripts only support one partition setups on one drive, so for
the most part this setting will not be used unless you are installing Vista by
hand (not from an image).
To be
more precise, the BDD 2007 builds its own unattend.xml file based on the
options you give it in the deployment wizard and feeds it to Vista from
C:\MININT in addition to the unattend.xml file in the image. SMS 2003 will only
merge its unattend.xml file with yours if you place it in
C:\windows\panther\unattend.
OfflineService phase – used to
apply updates to a WIM, we won’t be discussing this feature.
Generalize phase –I tell Vista not to reset the activation counter in this
phase (since you can only do it 3 times)
and I provide the branding for “RegisteredOwner”
which is defined in other phases.
Executing “sysprep /generalize” during the sysprep process removes system-specific information from
your system, so settings you put in here “survive” the sysprep
cleansing.
Note: if you are using KMS activation in
your production environment, be sure to remove the SkipReArm
setting in the unattend.xml file, otherwise the client count in KMS will not
increment! You need at least 25 or more
clients for KMS to start activating.
Specialize
phase – Here we re-enable the local administrator account, specify if we want
to automatically join the domain and if we want to automatically login to Vista
on first boot. Internet Explorer options
are also set here.
Audit
phase – Used by OEMs for running things in system context before OOBE, we don’t
be discussing this feature.
OOBE
phase – Here’s the “Out of the Box Experience” phase where most of the heavy
lifting is done. Again, Autologin settings are specified here (I find it’s better to define things in multiple places to make sure
Vista “consumes” the information since it can be difficult to determine what
phase the information is actually needed).
During this phase we need to create a local user account, otherwise the UserOOBE halts the installation asking the user to create
one. There appears to be no way around
this.
I’ve
also set the display resolution, suppressed the EULAs and set a local
administrator password. For every
password section, you will usually see a long list of letters and numbers. This will be your password stored in ciphertext.
Another special note is to make sure you do not specify a product key if you
are a using volume license media such as the Enterprise edition. Doing so will cause the BDD 2007 deployment
to halt at the product key GUI. My guess
is that Microsoft assumes you will be using KMS activation and not MAK.
Now
save your file as “unattend.xml” to a network drive or somewhere safe and to C:
Windows\System32\sysprep. I highly recommend making a GHOST or backup
copy of your work thus far BEFORE running sysprep. If you have a SoundMax
sound device, I also recommend uninstalling it before running sysprep. On my Dell
GX520, when I ran sysprep, it crashed and completely
hosed my image. Thankfully, I backed up
my disk before running sysprep. Microsoft is aware of
the SoundMax issue and is working on a fix.
Do a RunAs as administrator on a command prompt. Change over to \windows\system32\sysprep and execute “sysprep
/generalize /unattend:unattend.xml”. The system will now shut down.
Note: you can only reset the activation
status of an image 3 times with sysprep, then you have to completely rebuild the image (seriously!).
Keep that in mind while you are running sysprep. This is documented at
support.microsoft.com/kb/929828/en-us
To get around the three time generalize limit, the solution is simple: fork your image in two. Before you sysprep the PC, take a straight up WIM image of the system. After the capture, boot the PC back up and then sysprep it. That way you can have a "virgin" image that you never sysprep and keep archived. Of course, this means for every image you need to keep a backup doubling effort and disk space.
LiteTouch Approach to BDD 2007
Turning
Your Work into a WIM File
There’s
actually multiple ways of going about this: we can either build a Windows PE
solution by hand to run ImageX or we can make the BDD
2007 build Windows PE for us. Since I’m
lazy, I’ll let BDD 2007 do the work!
1)
Download
and install the BDD 2007 on Windows Server 2003
2)
Download
and install the MMC 3.0 update for Windows Server 2003 from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/907265
(needed for the BDD 2007 to work)
3)
Download
and install the WAIK in the following order
a.
Install
MSXML 6.0
b.
Install
.NET Framework
c.
Install
WAIK
d.
Install
USMT 3.0 (this should be done within the
BDD 2007 itself so it goes in the right location)
Create
Deployment Point
1)
Using
the BDD Workbench, right-click on the Deploy node and select New. Use the following settings for the BDD
Deployment Wizard.
a.
Lab
or single-server deployment
b.
Deployment
point name: LAB
c.
Allow
user to select additional applications on upgrade
d.
Ask
if an image should be captured
e.
Do
not allow user to set Administrator password
f.
Do
not allow user to specify product key
g. Share name: Distribution$
h. Allow the user to configure user state options
Make
a Windows PE disc for Image Capture
Out-of-box drivers are basically any drivers that Vista
does not have built-in support for.
Instead of guessing what network cards Vista supports, I basically
snagged LittleBugger’s universal NIC driver pack for
Windows PE and threw the
driver pack up on my web site. You can then unzip this file to your
hard drive and point the BDD 2007 to look for your NIC drivers there. www.msfn.org
also has universal driver packs you can use.
1)
Navigate
to the Distribution node in the BDD Workbench
a.
Drill
to the Out-of-Box drivers node
i.
Right-click the node
and when asked for the source, point it to the PENICDrvs
directory
ii.
Note that this process will take a long time
and it will take some time before the display populates with the information
2)
Navigate
to the Deploy>Deployment Points
a.
Right
click on LAB
b.
Select
“Generate a generic flat bootable ISO image”
c.
Hit
Apply, then OK
3)
Right-click
on LAB and pick Update
a.
The
resulting ISO will be placed in C:\distribution\boot
b.
Burn
this ISO to CD
c.
Note that
this process will take 20 minutes or more!
4)
Boot
from the Windows PE disc you just made on the build PC that you made and syspreped the image on
a.
The
CD should boot to a command prompt
b.
Type
“net use * \\yourserver\yourshare”
and input the necessary credentials to connect to the deployment server
c.
Navigate
to folder \distribution\tools\x86
d.
Execute
“imagex /compress fast /flags “Enterprise” /verify /capture c:
c:\myimage.wim “Universal Vista Image””
e.
When
this is complete, copy the resulting WIM from C: to \\yourserver\yourshare from
the command prompt
In the above example, the switch /flags tells the BDD 2007 what version of Vista we are capturing. If this is not done, the BDD 2007 will not correctly deploy the image. The actual image file is first dumped to the local C: drive and then we copy that file to the deployment server. This is the way recommended by Microsoft.
* Note: An alternate method is to run \\yourserver\distribution\scripts\LTISysprep.WSF to run sysprep and then capture the image from either the RAM or flat version of LiteTouch from Windows PE using the deployment wizard. Since I had trouble booting from the flat LiteTouch version, I went with the version I have above instead.
We are getting closer to deploying an image with the BDD 2007!
Add
Custom Image to the BDD 2007 Workbench
1)
Navigate
to Distribution Share>Operating Systems
2)
Pick
Custom Image
3)
Under
source file, drill to the myimage.wim file you made earlier
4)
When
prompted for the Vista setup files, point it to the Vista Enterprise media
5)
Leave
the destination directory name as the default
Now
you must add a build for this new custom image
1)
Right
click on Builds, choose New
2)
Give
the build a build id, build name and a comment.
These can be anything you want, but they must be unique
3)
Choose
the image you added earlier to the BDD 2007
4)
Do
not specify a product key at this time
5)
Enter
in the full name, organization and Internet home page (yes, Microsoft is redundant!)
6)
Specify
the local administrator password
Pushing
Custom Image to Bare Metal
1)
Navigate
to Deploy>Deployment Points
2)
Right-click
on LAB, go to Properties
3)
Check
“Generate a LiteTouch bootable RAM Disk ISO image”.
Click Apply, then OK
4)
Again note
that this process will take 20 minutes or more to complete
5)
Boot
from the CD and step through deployment wizard
a.
Note: It
may be a good idea to clean the disk before deploying the custom image. A left over “C:\MININT” directory can cause
the deployment to fail.
i.
In the second
command prompt that comes up, type “diskpart”
ii.
Type in “select disk
0”
iii.
Type in “clean”
iv.
Type in “quit”
v.
Now proceed with the
deployment
Congratulations, you just used the BDD 2007
to push out a customized Vista image!
Look mom: Ghost not needed!
Another fun thing you can do is refresh a Windows XP
workstation. In this scenario, all the
user state (documents, favorites,
printers, etc) is saved and transferred to the new operating system
automatically. This is done in the BDD
2007 by pushing down the USMT 3, and then capturing the user state using SCANSTATE
into C:\MININT. The BDD 2007 is able to “implode” everything around C:\MININT
so you get a clean system. When Vista is
finally pushed down to the workstation, the BDD 2007 sucks back in the
settings using LOADSTATE on the data saved within C:\MININT.
Note:
this process is not new. The BDD 2007
actually uses the SMS Task Sequencer from SMS v4. As you watch the BDD 2007 run scripts, you will
notice the title bars are named “System Management Server”. This is the first time Microsoft is giving
away the technology for free.
Refreshing
a Windows XP Computer to Windows Vista
1)
Build
a flat (not RAM) Windows PE disk using the settings under the section “Make
a Windows PE for Image Capture”
2)
Login
as administrator on the Windows XP machine to be refreshed
3)
Run
LiteTouch.WSF from the \deploy\scripts
directory on the CD
a.
Enter
the service account credentials, click next
b.
Pick
“Refresh this computer”, click next
c.
Enter
in the computer name, click next
d.
Enter
in the yourdomain for the domain with credentials
that have permission to add the computer account to the domain
e.
It
will ask you where to save the user state data. Pick “Automatically determine
the location” and check “Allow data and settings to be stored locally when
possible”. All data will be stored in
C:\MININT and will survive the refresh, click next
f.
Choose
to not backup PC, click next
g.
Pick
Vista Universal Image, click next
h.
Pick
correct regional settings, click next
i.
Pick
any applications to install after computer is refreshed, click next, then begin
j.
You
will have to manually input the local administrator’s password on first boot,
the PC will not Autologin on first boot (this is an acknowledged bug being worked on
by Microsoft)
k.
Verify
that all of the user state data is restored
* Note that you can also launch LiteTouch.WSF from \\yourserver\distribution\scripts if you don't want to use a CD.
ZTI Approach to BDD 2007 and SMS 2003
I used Johan Arwidmark's guide from deployvista.com
Tips To Use When Implementing ZTI with SMS 2003 SP2's OSDFP
-
I created a dummy file called Archive_OSD.SMS in C:\MININT (you need to create this folder by hand) for testing purposes on the test workstation. This prevents the OSD from removing the directory and the OSD log files at the end of deployment. You can then inspect the logs and state data for troubleshooting purposes.
-
Make sure you add any out-of-box NIC drivers to both SMS' Windows PE and your Image Package. You can update the NIC drivers in WinPE by using the Deployment Workbench. Image package drivers can be updated by right-clicking the Image Package, clicking on the Drivers tab and then pointing it to the NIC drivers.
-
Get Trace32.exe from the SMS 2003 Toolkit 2 and put it on a world readable share. This tool is invaluable for looking at SMS logs: it shows writes to the log in real time and color codes warnings with yellow and errors with red.
-
C:\windows\system32\ccm\logs on the workstation is where the SMS details what it is doing behind the scenes. I suggest inspecting the DataTransferService.log to see if the computer got the policy for the image package and ExecMgr.log to see if it was able to kick off the action. Make sure to also initiate an immediate download of machine policy on the workstation by going to System Management Properties in the control panel, click on the Actions tab and then run "Machine Policy Retrieval and Evaluation Cycle"
-
Make sure to "Update Distribution Points" with in the SMS Console any time you make a change to the package or image
Using SCCM 2007 to Deploy XP/Vista
I encountered some errors when moving my WIM files from SMS 2003 to SCCM 2007. Windows Vista is very particular when it comes to reading unattend.xml. The reason the domain join wasn't happening in SMS 2003 was because I defined both the UnsecureJoin value and then gave credentials to join the domain within the XML file in another section. Apparently this gives Vista a "charlie horse" and it just decides to not join the domain. The SIM will still validate the unattend.xml as a valid file: it must just check syntax. Having multiple unattend.xml files within the image is also a really bad idea. When imaging computer using the straight up WIM file using ImageX, my image kept joining the domain, but the trust relationship kept failing. I had a rogue unattend.xml in C:\windows\panther from my SMS 2003 days in addition to the one in C:\windows\system32\sysprep. After removing the XML file from the panther directory, things got a lot better.
Certain modules are very buggy when you try to configure them through the XML file. I tried to brand Internet Explorer with my company's name. When using OSD in SCCM 2007, the image kept failing saying Vista couldn't configure certain components during the minisetup. Of course, neither Vista nor the setup logs could point exactly to what modules were failing. It was only after systematically cleaning my XML file down to bare essentials did I find the error messages go away.
Quick and Dirty ImageX
I wrote a quick blog entry describing how to use ImageX just like Ghost. This bypasses the need to add the computer's MAC address to SCCM 2007 and allows the technician to directly pull down the WIM without any interaction with SMS/SCCM.
Installing WinRE onto the Hard Drive
These instructions have been copied from http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/default.aspx with slight modifications. Since the BDD 2007 only supports one bootable partition, that is how Windows RE is configured below.
Step 1: Copy Windows PE from the Installation Media
The version of WinPE that ships with the WAIK does not contain the components required to support WinRE. However every Windows installation disk contains WinRE that can be used for recovery of Windows Vista. Therefore, we will use the WinRE from the Windows installation media.
-
On
your technician computer, click Start, point to All
Programs, then Windows AIK, and then click Windows PE Tools
Command Prompt.
The menu shortcut opens a command prompt window and automatically sets environment variables to point to all the necessary tools. - Create a directory for the Windows PE image and a mount point
mkdir c:\winre_image
mkdir c:\winre_mount
- Copy the Windows PE image from the installation media using ImageX
imagex.exe /export /boot e:\sources\boot.wim 2 c:\winre_image\winre.wim “Windows Recovery Environment”
- Mount the image using ImageX
imagex /mountrw c:\winre_image\winre.wim 1 c:\winre_mount
Step 2: Add WinRE shell script
The WinPE we copied in step 1, does not launch WinRE automatically. In this step, we will create a script called winpeshl.ini that will launch the WinRE shell at startup.
- By using a text editor, create a file called winpeshl.ini that contains the following text:
[LaunchApp]
AppPath=x:\sources\recovery\recenv.exe
- Copy this file to \Windows\System32 directory in your mounted WinRE directory. For example,
copy winpeshl.ini c:\winre_mount\Windows\System32
Step 3: Add mass-storage drivers (optional)
If necessary, you can include third-party drivers (.inf) in your WinRE image by using the peimg.exe /inf command. For example,
peimg.exe /inf=<path> C:\winre_x86\mount\Windows
Where <path> is the location of the. inf file.
Step 4: Add custom tools to WinRE (optional)
You can customize WinRE shell by creating an .xml file called WinREConfig.xml. WinREConfig.xml enables you to define custom support and diagnostic tools within WinRE. This step is optional. For more information, refer to the WinRE documentation in the WAIK.
Step 5: Save changes to the image
Unmount the image by using ImageX. For example,
imagex.exe /unmount /commit c:\winre_mount
Copy boot.sdi, winre.wim and SetAutoFailover.cmd to C:.
Then execute “setautofailover.cmd /target c: /wim /nohide” within a command prompt (Make sure to RunAs administrator)
Now you should be able to reboot your PC, hit F8 and pick “Repair your computer” to be booted into Windows RE.