Bart Lagereij did the the world a great favor by conceiving and developing BartPE. I also admire the people who have written support tools, enhancements and instructional materials. But much of what has been written about how to make a BartPE CD is scattered around, and a lot of it seems to be for people who already have the basic ideas.

So this tutorial is a set of specific instructions that march in a straight line to successful completion of a basic bootable BartPE CD. Then, with the knowledge and confidence that comes from that experience a person can start to master the details of the process and make exactly the CD they want.

It is assumed that you know what a bootable BartPE disk is and why you want one, that you know how to create directories and navigate to them, and that you know how to extract the files from a file archive. I've tried to supply links to several files that you'll need. But if you're reading this a long time after I wrote it they may not work and you'll have to search for those files.

Many of the features and all of the actual programs contained in BartPE are controlled by plugins. But you do not have to know how to make plugins before making your first Bart disk. In fact, I suggest that you leave that until you're familiar with the basic Bart disk creation process. This tutorial series will progress through four phases
Phase I: Build and burn your first Bart CD
Phase II: Work with and build your own plugins
Phase III: Make a USB Bootable BartPE device
Phase IV: Convert to Sherpya's XPE Shell (optional, of course, but I like it. Has a familiar XP look, XP accessories, etc.)

Personally, I am still running Windows XP as my OS. But I don't see any reason why these instructions shouldn't work under later versions.

Phase I: Build and burn your first Bart CD.

If you have already tried to make a bootable disk and failed, I suggest that you delete the entire pebuilder directory and start over.

1. Download the file pebuilder3110a.exe from Bart's Pebuilder page I linked the page rather than the file because I think you should read through the page. But to find the file quickly, you can hit the “downloads” link near the top of the page.) When you run pebuilder3110a.exe on your computer, it will create a structure of folders and files on your hard drive. At this time, don't change anything created by this process and your success is almost guaranteed. The process will also place a pebuilder icon in your start menu.

2. Obtain a Windows XP installation disk. Unfortunately, you can't use the the files in your Windows directory.

3. Make a new folder called "C:\XPSource"

a. If your XP disk already includes SP1, SP2 or SP3, then skip steps {i} through {x} below, and go directly to step {b}. If your XP disk does NOT already include either SP1, SP2 or SP3, then you're going to silipstream one of those service packs into your XP source files. Don't worry, Bart made that easy too.:

i. Make a second new folder called "C:\SVPK"
ii. Download SP2 or SP3 (doesn't matter which - I used SP2) from Microsoft.com. It comes in the form of a large -ENU file. DO NOT RUN the -ENU file! If you do, it will try to actually install the service pack in your current OS and could make a mess. Instead, extract its files into the C:\SVPK folder.
iii. Place your XP disk in the CD Drive. Wait for the installation pop-up screen to appear, then close it.
iv. Run pebuilder from your start menu. Choose "Source/Slipstream" from the top menu of the dialog.
v. In the top entry box, point to the XP disk in your CDROM drive (by using the browse button to the right of the box).
vi. Check the "Source is read only" box, which un-grays the bottom entry box.
vii. In the middle entry box, point to the C:\SVPK folder
viii. In the bottom entry box point to the C:\XPSource folder.
ix. Press the "OK" button. When it finishes you can delete the C:\SVPK folder.
x. Skip step {b} below and go directly to step {c}

b. Copy the content of your XP disk (which already contains SP1, SP2, or SP3) into the C:\XPSource folder you created in step {a} [You do not need to copy the \VALUEADD or \SUPPORT folders].
c. If your XP disk is NOT from DELL, skip directly to step {4} now. If it is from DELL, you must replace the SETUPREG.HIV file in the C:\XPSource\i386 subfolder. If you don’t, it will cause errors later.

i. Google "download SETUPREG.HIV," and download that file from somewhere. You can try here, which worked as of this writing. Otherwise, it may take some work to track it down. You may have to register at some downloading archive site. Anyway, copy it into C:\XPSource\i386, overwriting the one that's there.
ii. After copying, make sure that the new file in \i386 is in uppercase letters (SETUPREG.HIV), not lowercase (setupreg.hiv).

d. There is one more fix that's needed. Download the file fixdellxp.cab. Extract its contents (fixdellxp.inf) to a new folder called C:\pebuilder3110a\plugin\fixdell. If you don't do this, you will probably not be able to boot a Dell computer (and maybe others) with your BartPE disk.

4. At this point you should have a folder, C:\XPSource, that includes at least SP1, and that does NOT have a DELL version of SETUPREG.HIV. You are now ready to run pebuilder and create a disk.
Run pebuilder from your start menu.

a. Accept the Pebuilder license agreement, and the Windows license agreement when each one pops up.
b. In the "Source" entry box, point to the C:\XPSource folder by using the browse button to the right.
c. Skip the "Custom" entry box
d. Leave BartPE as the output directory in the "Output" entry box
e. In the Media Output section, check "None." We want to verify that everything is in order
f. Press the "Build" button.
g. Watch the "Error" and "Warnings" counts. If you have any Errors the process won't complete, but when it stops you'll be able to use the arrow buttons to jump to the errors. Then you can come back to this forum with questions about particular errors. But do make sure you have replaced the SETUPREG.HIV file if you have a Dell disk--otherwise that causes at least four errors. "Warnings" do not stop the builder, they just let you know that the CD may not work the way you want it to. For instance, if you did not do the Dell fix in (3 d) above, you will get eight warnings about missing files, yet the process will complete. You'll be able to burn a disk but it probably won't boot a Dell computer. There will always be one standard warning if you are using a DELL or other OEM XP disk, but you can ignore that one.

5. If Pebuilder completed without Errors, CONGRATULATIONS! If not, come to this forum with questions about the errors.
Now burn a CD.

a. Press "Close,"
b. Place a blank writeable CD in your drive.
c. Check "Burn to CD"
d. From the "Build" menu at top choose "Build ISO/CD" and Pebuilder will burn your CD. (don't press the "Build" button at this point. That will work, but Pebuilder will go through the entire process again, building the registry, copying files, etc., before burning the CD). When it's done, try the disk out. The boot process will produce various effects on your display, including a light blue blank screen for a few moments, then you can enjoy the little thrill of seeing the BartPE screen for the first time!
6. You can run the builder again with "Build ISO Image" as the Media Output choice.
a. Check "Build ISO Image." Change the name of the ISO file if you want to, but if you do then be sure to remember the .iso extension, like "Name.iso"
b. Again choose "Build ISO/CD" from the top Build menu. This time an ISO image file will appear in the \pebuilder3110a folder.
c. There are two main reasons for building an ISO image file.

i. You can store that file.
ii. (the main reason for me) You can test the ISO without burning it by running the program Virtual PC 2007 and pointing to your ISO file. Virtual PC 2007 is a free download from Microsoft. It's pretty cool. This method requires less fuss and is faster, causing less frustration in the inevitable trial and error process of creating your own plugins. If your ISO works in Virtual PC, it should work when you burn a CD and boot from that.

Many of the plugins that appear in the "plugins" folder of the initial perbuilder3110a directory structure are absent from this first ISO. If you run Pebuilder and press the plugins button you'll see "no" in the "Enabled" column next to some of them. This is because their actual working files are not included in the pebuilder3110a distribution-only their .inf and .xml configuration files are included. Other plugins in the distribution that do have actual working files are now outdated. So, of course, you’re going to want to add newer and better plugins. You can find them posted in this forum and other places, and/or you can build your own. That's the next topic.

Then shouldn't this be in the BartPE section of the forums??


And I assume you don't realize that PEBuilder includes the ability to create CDs??

But thanks for the tutorial.

Thanks Ed. Fixed that last one.

It needs more fixing.

The 1st time you run PEBuilder select None for Media output and click on the Build button. Repeat this process until you build a clean BartPE system with no errors then change the PEBuilder Media output option to Burn CD/DVD and press F5, or click on PEBuilder's menu option Builder and select Build ISO/CD. PEBuilder will then create the ISO from the BartPE folder previously created and burn it to a CD or DVD. This way it does not rebuild the system.

If I may , this:

needs additional info.

HOW should the "newbie" extract the files?


jaclaz

Trying to burn CD I get:

Any idea how soon you will be doing this section?

What about doing it first for portable apps.?

Surely that should be simpler and easier to get started with?

k

Sorry to be so late getting back to you on this but I apparently didn't see it originally.

There is no setupbldr.bin file in PE Builder. Scan your plugin folder's .inf files and see if you have a plugin referencing it. If so disable the plugin and try rebuilding your BartPE system.


Have you tried running PortableApps.com's apps in a BartPE system?