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Sorry. I had forgotten that you had given control to winpeshl.ini. From the Users Guide: You need to add wpeinit to the [LaunchApps] section, followed by your Application: [LaunchApp] [LaunchApps] wpeinit %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\myApplication.exe The [LaunchApp] section is for a custom Shell. Regards EDIT: I do not use this method. It may be the case that your Application will still execute before wpeinit has completed. You can try other calls to wpeinit in the [LaunchApps] Section, such as 'CALL startnet.cmd', or 'cmd.exe, /k wpeinit', 'start /wait wpeinit', etc. I don't know which method will give satisfactory results. Trial and error!

You must ensure that wpeinit has completed before executing your application. You may need to wait several minutes.Perhaps, in your case it would be best to have taskmgr as the first line in startnet.cmd, followed by wpeinit. That way you can see in the Task Manager Processes Tab when wpeinit has completed. Just a suggestion. It may be a driver issue. Regards

@mdnchauhan, Firstly, thanks for the clear details. Your command-8 seems an unnecessary step. The WinPE Users Guide describes the following: imagex /unmount c:\winpe_x86\mount /commit copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim That is all that is required. However, for a more streamlined boot.wim, you can use: imagex /unmount c:\winpe_x86\mount /commit delete the default boot.wim in: c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim imagex /export c:\winpe_x86\mount\winpe.wim * c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim From the Guide: It is necessary to delete the existing boot.wim. Otherwise you will be adding/appending a second image to the the existing boot.wim. Secondly, do you have network connectivity at all when you boot WinPE, or are you having trouble connecting to a share? The network drivers in the WinPE image should all be installed by default. You may need to install specific device drivers for the Network Adaptors of the system on which you boot WinPE. In which case, use: peimg /inf=<path> c:\winpe_x86\mount\Windows Regards

pre-WAIK (before Vista) -> WinPE 1.x WAIK 1.0 (Vista) -> WinPE 2.0 WAIK 1.1 (Vista SP1) -> WinPE 2.1 WAIK 2.0 (Win7 beta) -> WinPE 3.0 I tried your hta in WinPE 2.1 and WinPE 3.0. In WinPE 2.1, it requires the XML Package as well as HTA and Scripting Host. BTW, nice hta! ... .... I can't say for certain, but assume the situation is the same for WinPE 2.0, although I seem to remember that once upon a time, an hta needed to be executed with mshta.exe ... ... which is not the case now. AFAIK, for WinPE 3.0, the base winpe.wim now includes XML and it is no longer an optional Package. However, the javascript part of your hta does not work in WinPE 3.0, even with all the other OS Packages installed. ... ... At least with my attempt. Perhaps someone else can figure it out. Regards

This is just the beginning of a long road. ... ... startnet.cmd is in your mount\windows\system32 The one default entry should be 'wpeinit', to initialiize PNP and Network support at startup. It can take a few moments. Add: SET PATH=%PATH%;<Path to your custom directory> If you like add: @ECHO OFFto the very first line, followed by the above line, then to the next line add: ECHO Path has been set to <Path to your added exe>. This will remind you what is available. Leave wpeinit til the last line. It may be better to start it in a separate process so you don't need to wait for access to the cmd prompt. ... something like that anyway. Regards

For a ready-made script and the brilliant scripting-engine, Winbuilder, download the following .zip, extract it to a path without spaces, double-click winbuilder, choose from a selection of shells and programs, and press 'PLAY'! ... ... The two scripts are not much more than 100KB. Everything is either downloaded from the web or copied from an installed Windows AIK directory, extracted and installed directly into a mounted winpe.wim (or into the iso directory if selected to not run Programs and/or Tools from RAM). The resulting bootable WinPE .iso will be located in the <Winbuilder Base Directory>\ISO folder, ready to burn to CD. For USB/HDD booting, the iso files are located in <Winbuilder Base Directory>\Temp\pe2\ISO folder. For any other purpose such as dual-booting simply from a .wim, use the <Winbuilder Base Directory>\Temp\pe2\ISO\sources\boot.wim file. Requires Windows AIK 1.1 (released for Vista SP1) installed in the conventional 'Program Files' location - alternatively select a less-conventional location under the 'Source Directory' Tab in Winbuilder. http://pe2.winbuilder.net/pe21.003/pe21.003d/pe21.003d.zip It's the lazy way! ... ...

By default Windows PE boots to the cmd prompt with the current directory, Windows\system32\. From there, you can't execute anything in customized sub-directories unless you change directories or set the PATH accordingly. With cmd as the Shell, use startnet.cmd to set the PATH to all the extra Programs at startup. Personally, I think it more correct to create the custom directories and sub-directories in the root of the drive - either RAM or medium - just like a full Windows OS. For the WAIK Tools, I actually create a 'Tools' directory too. For the RAM Drive, the situation when booted is: X:\Windows X:\Program Files X:\Tools ... all created in the root of your mount directory when building the image. If not run from RAM because of memeory restrictions, do the same except in the iso directory. Take care that not all Programs are able to run from read-only media. RAM is writeable. AFAIK, the 'Servicing' directory needs to be in a relative path to pkgmgr. For example: mount\Tools\pkgmgr mount\Tools\Servicing\ Regards

The \mount\Windows or \mount\Windows\System32 is OK if you have are planning a customization with one or two extra tools. Without a GUI shell and shortcuts, they're in the PATH to find and execute from the command prompt. To keep things in order, I reproduce full Windows and create a "Program Files" directory and sub-directories in the root of the RAM drive, i. e. "\mount\Program Files\etc." when building. For Programs to run from the medium, "\iso\Program Files\etc." If I don't use a GUI shell with shortcuts, I set the PATH to the all the executables. Regards

If you need the tools to load into RAM so that you can access them in Windows PE without media, you must copy them to the mount directory. In the walk-through: c:\winpe_x86\mount Otherwise you can copy them to the iso directory, in which case they will be available to Windows PE from the boot-medium. In the walk-through: c:\winpe_x86\iso Given the above, you must follow the rest of the Walk-Through - unmounting, replacing the default boot.wim, and creating the .iso accordingly. Regards

... a delta. Actually should be alpha 1, alpha 2, alpha 3, etc. because not everything has been tested. Anyway, 'delta' it is! What's next? gamma or epsilon? Added to the Program Selection Menu: wimb's U_XP_SET Install from USB Holger's PENetwork GUI Configuration lee's ViSplore Amazing Explorer (Thanks to Medevil) Don Ho's Notepad++ Source Editor (with Context Menu, total notepad.exe Replacement, and Explorer and Hex Editor extra Plugins) Thomas Kolb's jkDefragStarter GUI. (@Filip - x86 and x64 - No more PA.com! ... ...) Enabled BGInfo and damian666's Random Wallpaper in the xoblite and bbLean Shells Slightly modified bbLean's menu Moved a lot of Registry Settings from Build-time to Boot-time The Selected File-Manager and Web-Browser are automatically added to emergeDesktop's Launcher And a few other things ... ... New Users. Install WAIK 1.1 (release for Vista SP1). Download the following .zip, and extract it to a path without spaces. Double-click Winbuilder.exe and Press 'PLAY'! ... ... http://pe2.winbuilder.net/pe21.003/pe21.003d/pe21.003d.zip Old Users. Use Winbuilder's Download Center - pe2.winbuilder.net EDIT: Forgot to mention that emergeDesktop Development Shell was added for x86 and x64 PEs. Regards

Hi Tripredacus, The speed depends on the Operating System and the tool version. The Win7 tools under XP are particularly slow, and also not supported. I experienced sporadic errors when unmounting, so returned to the WAIK 1.1 (released for Vista SP1). The Win7 tools were noticebly quicker when run under Windows PE 3.0 (Win7beta), but still nowhere as fast as the older tools. Regards

@chiraag, Here is a screenshot of my bcdedit commands to set up a Dual-Boot-XP-WinPE from the Same Partition. bootsect and bcdedit are run from WinPE. The procedure starts with having no existing BCD on the HDD. One error is highlighted - the /addlast command - which seems to require at least two boot entries (... logically ...). The procedure following the Wrex batch does create entries in a different order to me, so the error may not apply. Nevertheless, it seems you are not getting the Boot Manager Screen, which indicates that the display order only has a single entry that is booted by default. (Perhaps that is what you want?) Regards http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ost&p=54593 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886.aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc721886.aspx

... a beta. Includes Language Pack installation from the 'winpe_langpacks\' folder supplied on the Windows AIK DVD. startnet.cmd is now started at boot-time by a RunOnce entry in the WinPE registry - avoids the bbLean bug of starting startup-folder items twice in Vista. http://pe2.winbuilder.net/pe21.003/pe21.003b/pe21.003b.zip Install Windows AIK v.1.1, download the .zip and extract to a path with no spaces. Double-click Winbuilder.exe, be online and press 'Play'. The .iso will be found at <Winbuillder Base Directory>\ISO\pe21.iso'. Also included in the .zip is the pePA.com Project for PortableApps.com®. Regards

... a screenshot of the config script's GUI in Winbuilder. EDIT: Trying to get a better thumbnail...

UPDATE 20 Apr 2009: I was hoping to finish a new improved version before expressing my thanks. Unfortunately, there are some incompatibility issues with winbuilder and its new developer, and the project has been permanently withdrawn. .......................................... Hi, It all started here as a simple script to compare the size of a basic WinPE 2.0 when using different imagex switches such as /commit, /capture, /export. It has now grown, but is not quite the proverbial monster (although becoming somewhat unwieldy). A new version of the scripting engine, Winbuilder was recently released, and the pe21 project required considerable modification to comply. An alpha, pe21.003a, was released here. The download includes Winbuilder 076 and the project scripts: http://pe2.winbuilder.net/pe21.003/pe21.003a/pe21.003a.zip The other prerequisites are a winpe.wim (x86, amd64 or ia64), a WinPE language pack if required (for earlier pe21 series, but not yet implemented in the new series alpha), and the tools - imagex, peimg, and oscdimg. The project will find these prerequisites if they are present in a default directory structure of an installed Windows AIK. If any of the optional shells or programs are selected, it is necessary to be online to build the project, because the archive/installer for each of those options will be downloaded from the developer's website during the build. A download will occur one time only and the archive/installer will be stored for future use in a sub-directory of the Winbuilder base directory. The philosophy was that a developer would at least get a hit from every download when the project is being built. I urge you to also pay a visit to the developers' websites and donate. There is a 'cheat' to avoid a download. An archive/installer for an optional shell or program can be placed in '<Winbuilder Base Directory>\Projects\pe2ArchiveDir\' provided that the file has the exact same name (version number, etc) as the file identified from the hard-coded URL in the script. I sometimes use older versions renamed to the newer versions shown in the script. ATM, three optional programs require files to be supplied by a user - Symantec Ghost files in '<Winbuilder Base Directory>\Projects\pe2ArchiveDir\ghost', FastStone Capture (free version no longer available from FS) files extracted to '<Winbuilder Base Directory>\Projects\pe2ArchiveDir\FastStoneCapture', and a set of tools listed as 'mking Tools Collection', which need to be gathered together in accordance with this into '<Winbuilder Base Directory>\Projects\pe2ArchiveDir\mkimg'. Only some of the optional shells and programs are compatible with x64 Windows PEs. The earlier series, pe21.00xx for WAIK 1.1, was working OK, except that some download links in the script had gone dead. I updated the links, and later discovered that new releases of some programs didn't work in Windows PE! In other words, I kind of broke it, and lost track. Another reason for the new series. An even earlier series, pe2.00x for WAIK 1.0 was abandoned when the WAIK 1.1 was released with some extra features and a slightly different installed directory structure. A vb script used to create shell shortcuts within the mounted WinPE, will most likely trigger an AV warning. If the warning is heeded and the vb blocked, there will be no shortcuts for things like reboot, shutdown, regedit, notepad, etc in the booted WinPE. The final .iso will be found at '<Winbuilder Base Directory>\ISO\pe21.iso'. I hope someone might find the project useful. Best Regards