Part 1: Using WinPE & ImageX to capture & deploy System Images

Windows Preinstallation Environment (or WinPE in short) is a lightweight operating system that you can boot up to capture system images, install drivers and system troubleshooting. Think of it like the bootable MS-DOS disk in the good old days. Unlike the 16-bit MS DOS that requires separate set of drivers, WinPE leverages on Win7 drivers. Furthermore, you can make and customise it freely using Windows Automated Installation Kits (WAIK) that is also freely available from Microsoft.

There are several online resources that teach you how to use WinPE. Nevertheless, here are the summary steps that I have compiled of using WAIK to capture & deploy system image.

0) Make a bootable WinPE CD, including ImageX toolkit.

1) Install OS, drivers, applications into a standard Dell PC

2) Run sysprep, click on "generalize" and quit.

3) Boot the PC into WinPE environment.

4) Use ImageX /capture to capture image. Save the wim image to a network folder

5) Boot new PC from WinPE.

6) Perform diskpart to create at least 2 partitions (first partition ~300MB for Win7/Win2K8R2 Bitlocker)

7) Map to the network folder that contains the WIM image.

8) Apply WIM image to new PC partition using ImageX /apply command.

Booting into WinPE

Do note that the WIM image can also be used in conjunction with Windows Deployment Services (WDS)., where it can be used as an Install Image. Think of an install image like a master image that can be installed and applied on bare-metal computers. Some of the useful online resources that outlined the detailed step-by-step include:

Walkthrough: Boot Windows PE from CD-ROM

Preparing an Image Using Sysprep and ImageX

Deploying A WIM Image With ImageX

Of these, making bootable WinPE CD is the first step. When creating a new boot configuration file called BCD by using BCDEdit, the Microsoft Technet walkthrough contains command options for BCDEdit that are no longer valid with Windows 7. In particular, replace the "-" with "/". I have listed down the workable commands outlined in the walkthrough

Bcdedit /createstore c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD

Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /create {bootmgr}

Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set {bootmgr} device boot

Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /create /d “WINPE” /application osloader

The last command returns a GUID value. Substitute with this value in the following examples.

Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> osdevice boot
Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> device boot
Bcdedit /store c:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> path \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
Bcdedit /store d:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> systemroot \windows
Bcdedit /store d:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> winpe yes
Bcdedit /store d:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /set <GUID> detecthal yes
Bcdedit /store d:\winpe-amd64\mount\boot\BCD /displayorder <GUID> -addlast