Windows PE

[Bill Ames]

Hi,
The Help files with my trial version of Windows XP Embedded say that I need
Windows PE to prepare my target system. It is told that this application is
on the install disk. My trial version was downloaded and installed from the
web. There is no "disk". Where do I get the copy of Windows PE that I need?

billa

 

[Henry Markov]

I was curious and tried to find it. Seems to me that MSDN for embedded
products needs some work. The link to manually download files rather than
do a web install as you did is dead. A link for some of the latest XPe info
points to a page about CE version 5.

HM

 

[John Mueske]

Billa,

I googled "download windows pe", and this was the 2nd hit:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en

Windows PE is sometimes used to copy the image to the target device. Steep
learning curve using Windows PE, especially using USB flash disk There's
good instructions at www.xpefiles.com (search for windows pe imagex).
However you don't really need Windows PE. I simply use a USB-IDE/SATA
adapter (~$20). The adapter is plugged into my workstation with XPe Studio,
and the flat image files are copied to the hard disk using the adapter.
Remove the hard disk from the development workstation, plug the into your
target device, and boot.

The help files might be referring to using Windows PE to run TAP.EXE to
build list of hardware on target device. I suggest using Windows XP
Professional instead.

Regards,
John

 

[Bill Ames]

This helped. I now have access to Windows PE and the Help is pretty good.
You mentioned using a USB to IDE/SATA to copy the image file to a HD and
then plug it into the target PC. The last part is not clear. The target PC
does have USB ports and a HD. What am I missing?

 

[John Mueske]

Hi Bill,

I apologize for the late response.

Here's some different options I've used for deploying the XPe OS to the
target device (more options exist!):

1) Boot to a UFD which contains the Windows PE OS and an XPe image you
developed. Using the imageX tool and WIM image format seems faster than
copying the flat files. A full format of the target hard disk is
reccomended.
2) Boot to a UFD which contains an alternate OS and image deployer (BartPE,
etc).
3) Remove the hard disk from target device, plug it into the devlopment
workstation which has XPE Studio, and copy the flat files to the target hard
disk. Insert the target hard disk back into the target device and boot.

Regards,
John

PS: UFD = USB Flash Drive