Creating a Windows PE 3.0 CD ISO

Instructions for creating a Windows PE 3.0 (WinPE) bootable CD image with the ImageX.exe program used for creating WIM format images of Windows 7 systems. These steps would typically be done on a technician computer and not on the system which you are creating the image of.

1. Download the Microsoft Windows 7 Automated Installation Kit (WAIK) which is distributed as an ISO image file and use it to install WAIK on the technician computer.
2. Run a command prompt as administrator.
   • This can be done with Start -> All Programs -> Accessories and right-clicking on "Command Prompt" and selecting "Run as Administrator"
3. Change the working directory to the PETools folder of the WAIK installation
   • cd C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\
4. Use the copype.cmd script to create a WinPE image build directory copype.cmd <architecture> <destination>
   • To create a 32-bit WinPE build in the c:\winpe_x86 directory: copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe_x86
5. Set the winpe.wim file as the bootable system for the CD by copying it from the main build directory into the iso\sources directory as boot.wim
   • copy c:\winpe_x86\winpe.wim c:\winpe_x86\iso\sources\boot.wim
6. Copy the ImageX.exe program from the WAIK tools into the WinPE build ISO directory
   • copy “c:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe” c:\winpe_x86\iso
7. Create a new bootable ISO image file with the oscdimg tool using the ISO directory as the source
   • oscdimg -n c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com
   • Note that there is no space between the -b flag and the location of etfsboot.com which is the El Torrito boot sector and which makes the CD image bootable.
8. The created CD image can be used as a virtual CD in virtualization software or burned to a CD and used to boot physical systems into WinPE with the ImageX utility included.