How To Make and Use a Bootable WinPE Drive

By Ed Tittel
published

A Bootable Windows Preinstallation USB stick can be a useful tool for any PC fix-it guy's toolbox. Here's how to make one and use it for maximum effect.

Creating and Managing the WinRE Image File

As it happens, WinRE capability is available from only two sources: the Windows Vista install media and as part of the Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK), which is a toolset available only to registered Microsoft partners. This may also explain why Microsoft fails to document how to build a WinRE boot UFD and why Technet claims that the WinRE wim file must be named winre.wim and installed on a hard disk (it’s also the case that this is indeed the only way to failover to a WinRE boot image, which may have been more to Microsoft’s point here). But because so many people have Vista installation media and might prefer a speedy boot that takes fewer than two minutes with a UFD instead of  waiting for the install DVD to produce the recovery console, we show you how to grab the WinRE windows image file next and fly in the face of this contention.

  1. Mount the Windows Vista install DVD in your optical drive (I assume it uses drive letter E: ).
  2. Create a directory named c:\winre as the target for your WinRE image grab, then use imagex to grab the Windows RE image from the Vista-installation media. The secrets to this command are the number two argument, which tells imagex to grab the second Windows image file it finds and the title information in quotes, which eventually shows up on the display window at boot time. I also include a listing of that directory’s new contents, the winre.wim file at about 127 MB.
  3. Stick your UFD into a USB slot, then copy the winre.wim file into its \Sources\ directory. It will reside alongside boot.wim. Note: you’ll need a UFD of at least 512 MB to have sufficient room to follow this instruction.

When you want to use your UFD to boot to ordinary WinPE, leave this file structure along. When you want to use the Windows Recovery Environment, rename boot.wim to boot.orig, then rename winre.wim to boot.wim. Only then can you boot into the WinRE console as shown at the beginning of the story (you’ll need to rename boot.wim to winre.wim and boot.orig to boot.wim to revert to the original WinPE environment). If you don't see a file named winre.wim in the \sources directory, then you know it’s currently your boot tool, so it should be easy to keep track of. On the other hand, you could set up another directory on the UFD named \images, and keep boot.wim and winre.wim in there. Then you need to only copy boot.wim into the \sources directory to get back to plain-vanilla WinPE. Or you can copy winre.wim into the sources directory, delete boot.wim, then rename winre.wim to boot.wim to use WinRE instead. This way, you always have a backup version in the images directory should you mess up in the sources directory.

Ed Tittel

Ed Tittel is a freelance writer, trainer, and internet consultant. His work has appeared on many sites, including Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, TechTarget, and more. He has also contributed to multiple books, including the "For Dummies" series, where he wrote about HTML, HTML4, XHTML, XML, and CCS. He was also series editor of the Exam Cram books until 2005.

13 Comments Comment from the forums
  • masterwhitman
    What, no mention of BartPE or UBCD4Win (Ultimate Boot CD for Windows)? These are two projects that are vastly superior to Microsoft's method (both are built on WinPE but have expanded capabilities) and are far easier to use.
    Reply
  • richwag
    Nice guide. Never knew about it. Thanks.
    Reply
  • when I saw this I thought it was going to be a review of Bart's PEBuilder... It's saved my a$$ many times. Far superior to WinPE...

    How about a comparison/companion article? or an article on tools gearheads & techies find indespensible?
    Reply
  • average joe
    Vista's PE is far more advanced than XP's. The BartPE project is based of XP's PE. Barts is amazingly useful and I can't wait till they move to from PE 1.1 to PE 2.0.

    Some "fairly new" systems will not boot from usb so always carry a cd version as a backup.
    Reply
  • "I usually grab Imagex.exe and the Package Manager using the commands shown in the next screen capture."

    Hmmm... I don't see a 'next screen capture' showing the commands used to get imagex and Package Manager.
    Reply
  • LightWeightX
    Good start to the guide until you get to the WinRE. In section 5, step 2, you describe using imagex and the secret is the number 2 argument however you do not give an example of the command. In the WinPE you use a 240 MB partition, then in WinRE you state you need at least 512 MB.
    Reply
  • sdybas
    Show us howto "use imagex to grab the Windows RE image from the Vista-installation media." Thanks.
    Reply
  • jfutima
    Yes please follow up on the last few comments, I am stuck in that spot.
    Thanks.
    Reply
  • Good article, but it makes a few omissions and goofs here and there.
    1. For using imagex to grab the WinRE image, check out this link:
    http://blogs.msdn.com/winre/archive/2006/12/12/creating-winre-using-waik.aspx
    2. "x64" won't work when you're using copype.cmd - it has to be "AMD64". Just replace all instances of x64 with AMD64 in this procedure, and it'll work.
    3. For the image showing how to grab imagex and the package manager, click on the picture above the text to open up the gallery, then click one pic forward.
    Reply
  • jfutima
    thanks suigi!
    Reply