Preparing Windows PE : Setting up the Environment

You will need to build an environment for customizing Windows PE images before deployment. Having everything in the appropriate location will simplify the task of creating builds and will help you establish repeatable methods for creating and updating builds.

Create this environment on a technician, or lab computer. If you’re using BDD 2007 to deploy Windows Vista, configure the Windows PE customization environment on the build server. In fact, installing and configuring BDD 2007 installs all of the requirements for building custom Windows PE images.

Installing the Windows AIK

Windows PE ships with the Windows AIK, which is available from the Microsoft Download Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads. Install the Windows AIK on your Windows PE build system from the installation DVD. (Microsoft provides the Windows AIK as a downloadable DVD image.) Installing the Windows AIK is a requirement for installing and using BDD 2007. Therefore, a build server containing BDD 2007 already has the files necessary to build and customize Windows PE images. 

Before installing Windows AIK, you need to prepare your build system for the Windows AIK installation. In addition to certain system requirements, installing the Windows AIK also has software prerequisites. These requirements are similar to the requirements for installing and using BDD 2007:

• MSXML Parser 6.0

• .NET Framework 2.0

• An x86 or x64 computer running Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista, or Windows Server Code Name “Longhorn”

• Approximately 1.1 gigabytes of free disk space, plus additional space for images and Windows PE builds

To install the Windows AIK

Configuring the Build Environment

Windows AIK will install the Windows PE build and imaging tools to the following folders:

• C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\ Contains Windows AIK program files

• C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\platform\ Contains ImageX program files for different processor architectures

• C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\ Contains Window PE source files

• C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\Servicing\ Contains supporting sources files

Windows AIK also provides a command prompt that opens on the Windows AIK tools folders (Figure 1). You can use commands within this command prompt interface to create your Windows PE build environment. The build environment is a copy of the build scripts and Windows PE source files that you customize and then use to create a new Windows PE image file. The Copype.cmd script is designed to create the build environment. Use the following syntax to create the Windows PE environment, where platform is either x86 or amd64 and destination is the folder to which you want to copy the files:

copype.cmd platform destination

Figure 1. Use the Windows PE Tools Command Prompt to work with Windows PE.

Removing the Build Environment

When the Peimg utility installs components, it modifies the access control lists (ACLs) of the Windows PE build files and folders, making it difficult to remove them in the future. You can work around this by using the Windows Server 2003 tool Takeown.exe to take ownership of the affected resources.

To remove the Windows PE build environment