In an earlier article I showed how to install the free Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). Now, we get to start using it. The first thing we’ll do with it is build a Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.0 boot disc. Microsoft says Windows PE is a “…bootable tool that provides operating system features for installation, troubleshooting, and recovery”. For many of us, it will take the place of DOS boot discs (and for some of you will be an alternative to BartPE, a free alternative to WinPE 1.0 which had limited availability). Here’s how to build a very basic WinPE boot disc that you can start using now, and can include in your Vista deployment plans. Future articles will discuss how to build on this to add more functionality.

1. Go to the Start menu and under All Programs find the Microsoft Windows AIK folder and launch Windows PE Tools Command Prompt, or open a command prompt and type cd c:\program files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools.
   
2. Create a local Windows PE build directory by typing the command copype.cmd <arch> <destination>. If you’ll be working with 32-bit machines (the rest of the examples will assume you are), replace <arch> with x86. If you’ll be working with 64-bit machines, replace <arch> with either amd64 or ia64, depending on which chipset your computers have.
   
3. You’ll see a list of files copying. When the copy is complete, you can add other tools to the image as well. One that you will likely want to have included is ImageX. To add this, if you installed WAIK to the default location, type copy "c:\program files\Windows AIK\Tools\x86\imagex.exe" c:\winpe_x86\iso\ (that is all one line). You can add other tools as well at this time, future articles will mention some of these.
   
4. You can now create a .ISO image using the Oscdimg tool. Change to the PE Tools directory by typing cd c:\program files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\ and hit enter. Then, type oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso (again, all one line).
   
5. With the image file created, you can now burn it to CD. WAIK doesn’t include burning software (and Windows XP or Vista can’t do ISO images out of the box either), so you’ll need a third-party product like Nero. If you don’t have Nero, and don’t want to spend any money, I use a freeware product called ImgBurn, which despite it’s name, can burn ISO files as well. Simply download and install with the default settings. Start ImgBurn and click the Browse for file folder icon at the top in the Source section. The file you are looking for is C:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso. You may want to check the Verify box, this will insure that the disc was properly created. It’s quite frustrating fighting to boot a machine only to learn your boot disc is no good. Put in your CD, and click the Write button at the bottom of the window (the picture of an image file with an arrow pointing to a disc).
   
6. The copy should only take a couple minutes. If you chose to verify, the CD will eject once the copy is finished, you need to push it back in again so the verify can automatically begin. You’ll know you are finished when some very annoying music plays. You can close ImgBurn and the Windows PE command prompt, you’ve got a WinPE boot disc!
   

Take your disc to a computer that you want to boot. You’ll either need to tell the computer to boot from the CD by starting the boot device menu (on a Dell you’d press F12 in the inital boot screen and select the CD/DVD drive), or in the BIOS tell the computer to check the CD/DVD drive before the hard drive in the boot order settings. If it turns out WinPE doesn’t have the drivers you need to properly boot your computer, all is not lost. You can add additional drivers, as well as other utilities, but those are topics for a future article.