ubernerd

Well the WAIK sure states that it is possible and I have tested it so I beg to differ ... When you use this method there is no wim file, hence the boot is not done from memory.

Well you 'd need to download the WinPE Builder kit for WinPE XP then, again MS is the only place to get this legit.

I think the WAIK has a description of how to do that.

All distribution of the files contained in the WAIK is illegal You'll need the other WAIK files anyway to rebuild the WinPe images, so you might just as well get on with the download.

I have BCD working perfectly but I was merely wondering if and how boot.ini might fit in.

I have seen that WinPE's bootmgr tries to load a boot.ini from the TFTP server when booting via PXE, and right after that it loads the BCD store. That leaves me wondering if the boot.ini could replace the BCD or something. Has anyone found any information on this file or is it just a beta leftover.

Primary reason is that I want to be able to install an unattend Vista x64 which cannot be done from a x86 WinPE (at least not as far as I know) I would image that you are right, but I want to limit the selections to one menu instead of several different menues.

I think I'll do just that ... But first I'll answer your questions 1. No the bootloader only provides a list of images to boot from, and by loading pxeboot.n12 we boot into a WinPE wim image, this however requires that the wim file and the supporting BCD store is placed in a TFTP subfolder called boot otherwise it wont fly. I have even tried to change the paths referenced in the BCD store, with out any luck. 2. My wim files can be called anything, but I can only have one as the BCD related to my wim file, MUST reside in a folder called boot.

The WAIK contains al the information you need to boot a WinPE wim from a harddisk. But make sure you have the RTM version, the older WAIK versions was incorrect on this subject. Do remember that if you want to boot a WinPE 2.0 WIM file from a drive containing XP, you must switch to the NT60 bootloader using BOOTSECT before you reboot. If the harddrive contains XP, you must built the BCD store and add the required settings to handle the WIM boot (these are in the documentation) If the harddrive contains Vista you must add to the existing BCD instead.

It works just fine using WDS, but the thing is ... I'm not using WDS, I'm using a PXE server built using a TFTP server and a PXE bootloader we developed in-house.

I have a working PXE setup where I can boot several different types of images, Floppy, Altiris and WinPE x.x The only thing I cannot figure out is how to handle more than one WinPE 2.0 image, I need to be able to select between different WinPE wim files to handle both x86 and amd64. Has anyone found a way to change to name of the boot folder for the wim file ? This would enable me to select different wim files to be loaded. I have tried to alter the path specified in the BCD store included in my PXE setup both it seems that someone (MS) hardcoded the path.

You're right its nt52 not nt51, sorry about that

Your problem is caused by the fact that WinPE 2.0 formats the drive and writes a Vista bootsector (using BCD instead of ntldr) on your disc. Add bootsect to your WinPE image, and run it after you have partitioned the disk. I use BOOTSECT /NT51 C: /FORCE That did it for me.

You dont need to load wdsndp.com if you dont use WDS, you can point your DHCP options to pxeboot.com or n12 instead and skip the WDS check (will save you around 30 sec in startup time) What does your boot folder contain and have your created a BCD fil according to the instructions in the WAIK help file, section "Deploy an Image by using PXE" ? The most common error you'll see during boot is that your BCD is missing required information.