Hi

In your opinion what is the best Windows PE?

Here are the features I'm looking for;

• Fast bootup
• GUI
• Driver support (So I can install custom drivers)
• Network Support
• Multi-Programs support (so I can add custom programs into the PE)

Please recommend a (free) Windows PE for me,

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

What ones have you tried so far?

Seeing as you have no experience with Windows PE I would suggest going with Nino Brito's Winbuilder. Its relatively easy to use and shouldn't make your life too difficult. As far as "Free" most standard PE's are free due to it being available from Microsoft for Free. The downside is that you have to esentially modify it on your own to suit your needs.

To get familiar with it start with Winbuilder.

http://winbuilder.net/download.php?list.3

UBCD4WIN fits the requirement list.

^Thanks. How does the speed of UBCD4WIN compare to BartPE's speed?



BartPE, although I've been recommended LiveXP (and in the previous post, UBCD4WIN).

What do you think of those?

Would you recommend any others?

The best PE is the one that satisfies your needs and that you like working with. The latter only comes after you've tried them.

Personally I like BartPE. I've used UBCD4WIN and it's very complete and impressive. Some like the WinBuilder systems. Some people like the standard Windows PEs. All allow you to customize them, some more than others. All are failrly easy to set up and run the 1st time and after that you can decide which one you like the best.

Thanks for that.

You being the Administrator of this forum, would probably mean that you have tried all the PE's. Which PE do you think has the fastest startup speed?

Please reply

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

Every PE with only the needed drivers installed!

Joshua

Panarchy, with all due respect , does it makes sense to repeat once again this question after having been told:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=6920&st=11
that there is NO answer for that, since there are thousands of way to build a PE?

jaclaz

BAD assumption. I started with one, found I liked it, it could do what I wanted and I basically stayed with it. I've tried a couple of others, found I preferred the 1st one. I suspect your experience will be similar, once you start.

Hello,

UBCD4Win is a PE for technicians you can add wireless and wired network drivers to it .
it has support on their forum, a lot of very knowledgeable people on that site.

it comes with all sorts of tools virus checkers , disk backup tools driver backup tools all FREE.

it is based on windows XP+SP2

also new Vista PE (installation disk ) is bootable PE it has wired network support by default and
also has hot pluging (which means you can put your utilities on a memory stick )
and start them from there as long as you got A43 file manager on there it becomes GUI

microsoft are for next few days are giving away Windows7 (Vista+SP1)
free for download:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7...a-download.aspx
it is a PE bootable
it takes 16 hours to down load it has only 6 months licence .
......................
In addition to commercial ISO burning software, there are free programs such as ISOBuster and ImgBurn and Active ISO Burner. To find one, go to a site such as Download.com or Tucows and search for "ISO," "DVD," and "burn".
.............................

or you can down load Vista PE from here:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vist...-disc-download/
use IMGBURN to burn it to aCD-R
and put your tools such as A43.exe , etc on a memory stick,

the fastest PE is Reatogo and it has a HAMACHI support plugin and Ultra VNC
which the others do not have.
http://reatogo.de/Reatogo_autoHelp_Plugins_CONFIG.htm
it also kicks in to wirless network Auto and connects to the first unsecure network.
then you can connect through hamachi /VNC to you home PC.


happy computing
Ben

@Ben Mott
What you linked to (and posted about) is NOT VistaPE, which is a Winbuilder based project, it is Vista RE (Recovery Environment).

jaclaz

Thanks Ben.

The three PE's quoted above look the most interesting.

VistaPE because of its hot plugging feature, Reatogo because you say it is the fastest PE & UBCD4win because of its wireless/wired driver support.

Would there be a way to;

• Add wireless support to Reatogo
• Add wired support to Reatogo
• Add the hot-plugging feature to Reatogo

I'm also interested in LiveXP, what are your thoughts on LiveXP?

Please reply,

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

PE boot times are dependant on what drivers are being loaded at boot time.

UBCD4WIN has the most complete set of drivers availble so it does take a little longer to load then a PE with only your hardware speciffic drivers as in a Reatogo build. To increase boot speed, disable the driver packs and only add the drivers your system needs.

Running speed is based on what shell you are using and geoshell + the ubcd4win systemcore is moch quicker then XPE as found in Reatogo.

UBCD4WIN is aimed at anyone who needs to fix a problem with their computers and you don't need to be a tech to use it.
The whole idea was to provide a system that anyone can use without having to spend the time to develope their own unique PE build.

Hmm... thanks.

But you didn't answer my other question, about adding features from other PE's into any PE I choose.

I would especially like the wireless drivers, the wired drivers and the hot-pluggable feature.

Please tell me if it is possible to add those features into any PE, and if it is possible, then can I please have download links for the drivers and hot-pluggable feature.

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

It is not so easy! a pe system is a very complex system!

Joshua

Hello,

both UBCD4WIN and Reatogo have Wired and wireless ability.
in UBCD4win you start both Manually ,
the driver for wired networking is there by default.
the wirless service written by that brillient programer Joshua.
starts the windows XP wirless service.(do it manually system>start wirless service)

you add drivers by putting your own drivers fronm CD in the folder c:\UBCD4Win\drivers\net
or best written in FAQ on UBCD4WIN web site.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/faq.htm

there is a lot of wirless drivers there check it to see if yours is there.

with UBCD4WIN and Reatogo you need to put in the USB memory stick in first
then start computer with UBCD4win bootable CD

Reatogo is much harder to get your head round it .

I started from Bart 's web site NU2
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

but found out that UBCD4win was much easier
as all the work is done for you.

I would like to thank the UBCD4WIN team for their time and letting us use their Bootable CD for FREE.

majority of software works from within the UBCD4WIN(sophisticated Bart PE)
for example SALA password removal removes password from Vista as well as XP.
but does not work from within Vista PE 2

Regards Ben

I totally agree!! So many people make PE seem like a breeze which is surely is not. It can easily take 40 hours to get aquainted with the basic way pe works and does not work. From there adding drivers is usually easy but if an *.inf is not well written it can be quite difficult.'

I have been using BartPE for about a year and have succeeding in running / rebuilding imagecenter32 plugin from scratch, ghost11, kixtart etc. I have added dos batchfiles that run the net use command automatically - I searched high and low and very few people had this knowledge or a clue about basic scripting.

PE environments can have a great pay off but there is no comprehensive manual beyond the basics of getting started. Most pe users stumble around in the dark trying to get something functional. It is a steep learning curve and requires a lot of up front time but can have a great pay off.

TIP: I do my bart work inside a virtual machine - this way I can backup the exact enviroment and everything stays very clean and can be given to a co-worker so they can add drivers etc and generate a new pebuilder.iso image with the exact environment and existing drivers. Also, the whole thing is portable across pc's from work to home.

- Mrbios

I never thought that it would be! I'm currently working on multiple projects (Training for Industry Certifications, installing 9 operating systems on 1 hard-drive, Making a GRUB boot disc that will allow me to boot into any of my 9 OSs, designing my business card, designing my website, Creating a Linux distribution (have remade it from scratch around 7 or 8 times, and have just started from scratch again, this time building it from Debris), creating [this] Windows PE & creating a Mac OS X LiveCD.

On top of all that (if that wasn't enough already) I will be starting full-time work in about a week!



So as you can see, I'm not afraid of a little hard and complicated work!

Thanks for your reply.

So UBCD4WIN and Reatogo both have wired and wireless drivers built in? That's good to know. How about LiveXP?

Also, would it be possible to add the hot-pluggable feature to UBCD4WIN, Reatogo or LiveXP?

You know, the aforementioned attributed feature, where you can put in USB flash sticks whilst you are booted into the PE system?

Because I am especially interested in having that feature in my PE build.

Thanks in advance for any advice on how I can have that,

Panarchy

Not wishing to disrupt your plans too much but if you install into your first partition a Windows system you can add GRUB4DOS's grldr to it's boot menu which will then allow you to boot the other partitions. No boot disc needed.


Congratulations!!


In that they are all BartPE based I don't see why not. How, where and etc may take a little doing but the results should work as desired.

Easy to add. Amalux has a tutorial at boot-land.


Hot-plugging usb comes default with LiveXP. For rare case where there's a glitch (I have one external harddrive that doesn't get recognised, but haven't taken the time to sort out the issue), MountStorePE is included.

Regards,
Galapo.

Oh that's great! So VistaPE and LiveXP both have the hot-pluggable feature!

That's good to know!

Now, how would I go about adding the hot-pluggable feature to UBCD4WIN & Reatogo?

Thanks. However the main reason I want to create a boot disc that will allow for booting into any of my partitions, is in case one (or all) of my GRUB menu's die (Error 17, Error 22 etc.) then I will always have redundancy, one that will be burnt to a disc (so I know it won't fail me).

Thanks, that's good to know.

If anyone knows how I can add the hot-pluggable feature to Reatogo, can you please tell me?

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

I was answering strictly in relation to LiveXP. I have no idea regarding VistaPE.


Since both of those a built with pebuilder, you would either need to find an already existing plugin, or write one yourself.

Regards,
Galapo.

Not exactly true. UBCD4WIN and Reatogo are built with pebuilder; LiveXP is rather built with WinBuilder.

Regards,
Galapo.

Oh, well I was cross-quoting;


with



Do you know where I could find these type of plugins? (or can you give me a link to the hot-plugging plug-in?)


Ah. So do both PEbuilder and WinBuilder use the same plug-ins?

Does anyone know of a hot-plugging plug-in? If so, please give me the link!

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

Sorry, I haven't used pebuilder in over two years...


No. Pebuilder uses plugins; WinBuilder uses scripts. Pebuilder does not accept WinBuilder scripts. Pebuilder plugins may be used in nativeEx-based WinBuilder projects like nativeEx_barebone and LiveXP.

Regards,
Galapo.

Ah. Well I'm pretty sure (correct me if I'm wrong) that since VistaPE was created with PEbuilder, and LiveXP was created with WinBuilder, and that both support hot-plugging, then that means that somewhere on this vast internetwork of networks (The Internet!) there would be the script for WinBuilder that is used with LiveXP, as well as the plugin for PEbuilder used in VistaPE.

So can I please have some help with finding the hot-plugging script &/or the hot-plugging plugin?

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

Sure, it's spelled G o o g l e. Let us know if you need a URL for it.

VistaPE is a WinBuilder project as well. pebuilder cannot be used with Vista or 2k8 sources.


Like I said, I can't help with a plugin. Here's a link to the script used in LiveXP: http://livexp.boot-land.net/LiveXP/Drivers...BSupport.Script

Regards,
Galapo.

Thanks Galapo.



Can you tell me if I need anything else other than that script to allow for hot-plugging with whichever WinBuilder built PE I choose?

Also, do you know if there is a plugin out there that does the same thing as the aforementioned hot-plugging script?

Please reply.

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

The script I linked to will work with nativeEx-based projects built from xp\2k3 sources.

I have no idea about plugins anymore other than the OfflineSysPrep one I continue to maintain.

Regards,
Galapo.

Okay, thanks Galapo.

Now all I need to do is benchmark each PE I know about to see which is fastest!

Well, any nativeEx-based project will tend to be fast given that dll registrations can be made at build-time.

Regards,
Galapo.

@Panarchy
How about toning down that signature?

I was hardly able to read through this thread do to the size and color of your choosen signature without getting a headache, and of course it's repeative nature on every post.

FYI: While booted into UBCD4WIN run HWPWP (Force install USB) to mount a device after booting.

@Galapo
UBCD4WIN has all but 3 dll registrations done in the systemcore plugin.

That's great, it would be a fast project as well.

I guess I was speaking from past experience a couple of years ago using XPE.

Regards,
Galapo.

@Panarchy
How about toning down that signature?

I was hardly able to read through this thread do to the size and color of your choosen signature without getting a headache, and of course it's repeative nature on every post.[/quote]
Thanks for noticing it. However, it is for your my information as well as yours. So that whenever I go on a forum I'm a part of, I'll be reminded to stay on track


Thanks for the information hilander999 and Galapo.


Ah...

Hmm... well it sounds like (correct me if I'm wrong) that you would like to help me with the actual writing of the project. Is that right, or did I misread?

As I would really like some help, especially (in fact, only) with the creation of a 'perfect' base-system for a Windows PE.

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

For me, it's already done. The script is working in LiveXP and I'm satisfied. If you want to port it back to pebuilder, that's up to you. For me, pebuilder no longer ceates the PEs I desire, so I have no intention of writing any other plugins other than OfflineSysPrep.

But likely porting back may not work anyway, since you may need explorer as shell and as far as I'm aware UBCD4WIN doesn't have the option to use that shell yet.

Regards,
Galapo.

Let me express again that "perfect" here is quite subjective. What you want may not be what I want and what anyone else wants. I'm happy with nativeEx/LiveXP, Ed's happy with BartPE, and hilander999 is happy with UBCD4WIN. Because we all in our own way think that our project fits our needs, you'll unlikely get help to develop something that meets your own specific needs. That's for you to do if existing projects don't meet your requirements.

Regards,
Galapo.

Hi

I see what you mean. Well I'll make a list of what would make a Windows PE perfect for me;

• GUI
• Usable command prompt (and possibility to add CLI programs)
• Ability to install custom drivers
• Ability to install custom software
• Hot-pluggable feature
• Speed (the faster the bootup, the better!)

Please tell me what PEs do you think would be perfect for me!

Thanks in advance,

Panarchy

I would say try LiveXP and UBCD4WIN and see how you go. One might take your fancy more than the other. If neither entirely suits, modify to suit.

Regards,
Galapo.

There is nothing more to say!!!

Joshua

Well, NO.

We could say that in the time Panarchy brought forward this thread he could have built, failed, re-built, fixed and tested between 4 and 10 different builds, say UBCD4WIN, a plain bartPE, a couple of versions of liveXP, two or three native_Ex barebones, a Reatogo and a Xpe, Moa, Livista Rescup and possibly started testing VistaPE 12RC1....

jaclaz

Please FRODO help us !!!

Joshua

I don't understand why the SAME question is being asked still after over 7 days??!!!

How many times and how much time do you guys have to waste saying the same things:
Perfect is in the eye of the beholder.
Boot times depend on the amount of drivers you include.
Hot plug is in some of the distro's.

My opinion is bias so I've kept my mouth shut. Since I am the creator of UBCD4Win, I of course think it would be perfect for what he wants to do. It's perfect for what I need on a daily basis and I don't have the time to play around with newer stuff. When UBCD4Win doesn't take care of my daily duties, then I will find something else to try or develop something new.

@Panarchy, please quit wasting our time and just try a few things.

Because someone needs to add:

Develop the ability to make decisions on my own.

to their list of things to do. Probably her first time away from home.

And apparently in no hurry to have a working PE, perfect or otherwise.

Always look at the bright side.

We are the lucky lot.

Try guessing what will happen to the poor guys that will try and help him when he finally gets to #10 "Learn how to program"



@Panarchy
Seriously, the essence of PE's, and of the various, innumerable ways one can build one is experimenting, possibly having fun while doing it, in other words:


and:


The quote that actually better describes the process is maybe this one:




jaclaz

I couldn't agree with you more.

And jaclaz, I have already gotten suggestions (quite a few months ago) on what to study for that. I admit, I do need help with a lot of things, however, once I have everything perfect, then I will never have the need to ask for help, I'll only have the need to give help!



Thanks guys for helping me all this time, I think I now have enough knowledge to create my own Windows PE.



I will attempt this probably no sooner than I've completed steps 2-7 (see sig).



Thanks

I guess the final tip (and probably the most important) is to just have fun! Good luck with your builds.

@Panarchy

When you finally decide which PE version best suits your needs or that you like the best please report back as to which one and why.

Thanks



Sure, I will (already planned on).

Although as I mentioned before, I do have a lot on, so don't expect me to answer straight away.

Panarchy