Windows PE

2016-02-06T15:04:03Z

Mjdtjm: Current release of wimlib-1.9.0 (released January 31, 2016)

Some utilities/drivers provided by IBM/Lenovo come only in the form of Windows executables (for example, [[Intel_Active_Management_Technology_(AMT)|Intel AMT]] firmware updates). And for people who don't use Windows OS on their computers it becomes impossible to use/apply them. Luckily, Microsoft provides [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/results.aspx?pocId=&freetext=Automated%20Installation%20Kit&DisplayLang=en Automated Installation Kit] (aka AIK) for free to everyone with very few resctictions on usage (basically, they only prohibit using it as a substitute of a "real" OS, and allow to use it for any diagnostic and reapair tasks). The latest version is [http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=696dd665-9f76-4177-a811-39c26d3b3b34 The Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7]. Users of Windows OS can install this AIK and create bootable CD-ROMs and bootable USB-flash drives with Windows PE (or WinPE for short), which is essentially a stripped-down version of Windows. In this article we will explain how to create bootable CD-ROMs and USB-flash drives with WinPE using only free software. Moreover, free software allows to create bootable USB-FDD with WinPE -- the feature not available to users of Microsoft tools :).

==How to build a bootable WinPE *.iso image==
===Using wimlib===
* Download, build and install wimlib https://wimlib.net/ Current release: wimlib-1.9.0 (released January 31, 2016)
** On Debian-based systems:
sudo apt-get install debhelper autotools-dev pkg-config libfuse-dev libxml2-dev libssl-dev ntfs-3g-dev attr-dev attr
wget https://wimlib.net/downloads/wimlib-1.9.0.tar.gz
tar -xzf wimlib-1.9.0.tar.gz
cd wimlib-1.9.0
dpkg-buildpackage -uc -us -rfakeroot
sudo dpkg -i ../wimlib_1.9.0-1_amd64.deb ../wimtools_1.9.0-1_amd64.deb
* Mount the AIK image
mkdir waik
sudo mount -o loop,ro KB3AIK_EN.iso waik
* Create the WinPE image (with drivers extracted by wine)
mkwinpeimg --iso --waik-dir=$PWD/waik winpe3_x86.iso --overlay=$HOME/.wine/drive_c/DRIVERS
* Unmount the AIK image
sudo umount waik

===Using standard tools===
* From the AIK installation file <tt>KB3AIK_EN.iso</tt>, provided in the form of a UDF disk image, use <tt>7z</tt> (from [http://sourceforge.net/projects/p7zip p7zip]) to extract the files <tt>wAIKX86.msi</tt> and <tt>WinPE.cab</tt>
* use <tt>7z</tt> or <tt>cabextract</tt> to unpack these files into <tt>/tmp/wAIKX86.msi/</tt> and <tt>/tmp/WinPE.cab/</tt> respectively
* create a bootable WinPE *.iso image <tt>/tmp/winpe3_x86.iso</tt>
cd /tmp
mkdir -p winpe3_x86/boot
mkdir -p winpe3_x86/sources
cp wAIKX86.msi/F_WINPE_X86_etfsboot.com winpe3_x86/etfsboot.com
cp wAIKX86.msi/F1_BOOTMGR winpe3_x86/bootmgr
cp wAIKX86.msi/F_WINPE_X86_bcd winpe3_x86/boot/bcd
cp wAIKX86.msi/F_WINPE_X86_boot.sdi winpe3_x86/boot/boot.sdi
cp WinPE.cab/F1_WINPE.WIM winpe3_x86/sources/boot.wim
genisoimage -sysid "" -A "" -V "Microsoft Windows PE (x86)" -d -N -b etfsboot.com -no-emul-boot \
-c boot.cat -hide etfsboot.com -hide boot.cat -o winpe3_x86.iso winpe3_x86
the file you will get will be about 120M in size. Then you can burn this *.iso and boot it on any x86-machine which supports booting from CD-ROMs (which is pretty much any PC today)

==How to build a bootable WinPE USB-flash image==
a more convenient option would be to create a bootable USB-flash drive. Unfortunately, Windows loader <tt>bootmgr</tt> does not seem to support booting from USB-FDDs, while for some BIOSes this is the only type of bootable USB-flash devices.

===Building WinPE USB-HDD image natively in a virtual machine===
Since we already have a bootable WinPE *.iso image, we can use native Windows tools to build a bootable WinPE USB-HDD image in a virtual machine like '''qemu'''.
* prepare a blank
dd if=/dev/zero of=winpe3_x86hdd.img count=250000
* boot <tt>winpe3_x86.iso</tt> (which you've created before) in a virtual machine
qemu -enable-kvm -machine accel=kvm -cdrom winpe3_x86.iso -boot d -m 300 -hda winpe3_x86hdd.img
* now, in the shell provided by WinPE in the virtual machine
diskpart.exe
diskpart> list disk
diskpart> select disk 0
diskpart> clean
diskpart> create partition primary
diskpart> list partition
diskpart> select partition 1
diskpart> format fs=fat32 quick
diskpart> active
diskpart> assign
diskpart> list volume
diskpart> exit
xcopy /s d:\* c:\
wpeutil shutdown
* when the virtual machine shuts down, the bootable WinPE image is ready. If you have write permissions for some flash media device (e.g. <tt>/dev/sdb</tt>), you can copy it with
# dd if=winpe3_x86hdd.img of=/dev/sdb
and use it for test/diagnostic tasks such as firmware upgrades. If you want, you can create an additional partition for you firmware/diagnostic tools, just don't mess with the partition created by Windows -- you may reder it unbootable.

===Building WinPE USB-HDD image with mtools and syslinux===
if for some ethical or religious reasons you do not want to run any Windows code even in a virtual machine, or you don't have a virtual machine at all -- you can build a bootable WinPE USB-HDD image using '''syslinux''' and '''mtools'''.
* create and format the partition image
dd if=/dev/zero of=winpe3_x86part.img count='''234000'''
/sbin/mkfs.vfat -F32 winpe3_x86part.img
Note: it looks that '''234000''' is the minimal possible size, but you can choose a bigger number.
* copy the files (you may have to put "mtools_skip_check=1" into <tt>~/.mtoolsrc</tt> if your partition is not aligned like mine)
mmd -i winpe3_x86part.img boot
mmd -i winpe3_x86part.img sources
mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /tmp/wAIKX86.msi/F1_BOOTMGR ::/bootmgr
mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /tmp/wAIKX86.msi/F_WINPE_X86_bcd ::/boot/bcd
mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /tmp/wAIKX86.msi/F_WINPE_X86_boot.sdi ::/boot/boot.sdi
mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /tmp/WinPE.cab/F1_WINPE.WIM ::/sources/boot.wim
mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /usr/lib/syslinux/chain.c32 ::/chain.c32
* create the config file <tt>/tmp/syslinux.cfg</tt> and copy it
DEFAULT WinPE
LABEL WinPE
COM32 /chain.c32
APPEND boot ntldr=/bootmgr

mcopy -i winpe3_x86part.img /tmp/syslinux.cfg ::/syslinux.cfg
* install syslinux
syslinux winpe3_x86part.img
* create USB-HDD image of the size at least '''32''' sectors bigger than the size of the partition we've just created
dd if=/dev/zero of=winpe3_x86hdd.img count='''234032'''
* create a bootable partition entry
/sbin/parted winpe3_x86hdd.img
(parted) mklabel msdos
(parted) unit s
(parted) print free
(parted) mkpart primary fat32
(parted) set 1 boot on
(parted) print
(parted) quit
* copy the partition image into the disk image
dd if=winpe3_x86part.img of=winpe3_x86hdd.img seek='''32'''
where '''32''' is the start sector of your partition
* now the image is ready. If you have write permissions for some flash media device (e.g. <tt>/dev/sdb</tt>), you can copy it with
# dd if=winpe3_x86hdd.img of=/dev/sdb
and use it for test/diagnostic tasks such as firmware upgrades.

===Building WinPE USB-FDD image with mtools, syslinux and grub4dos===
Any BIOS that supports booting from some USB media at all supports booting from USB-FDD. As it was mentioned ealier, the problem with WinPE is that the bootloader <tt>bootmgr</tt> does not seem to like such devices. So, we will have to create a virtual HDD or a virtual CDROM (I prefer virtual HDD). For some mystical reason, <tt>memdisk</tt> (the dirver for virtual disks which comes with syslinux) does not work on Thinkpads if the disk image is on a USB media. Thus we will use a rival technology [http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/files/ grub4dos].
* create USB-FDD image
dd if=/dev/zero of=winpe3_x86fdd.img count='''238200'''
/sbin/mkfs.vfat -F32 winpe3_x86fdd.img
Note: it looks that '''238200''' is the minimal possible size, but you can choose a bigger number.
* download [http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/files/ grub4dos] and copy <tt>grub.exe</tt>
mcopy -i winpe3_x86fdd.img grub.exe ::/
* copy the payload
mcopy -i winpe3_x86fdd.img winpe3_x86part.img ::/
Note that this is the image of the partition, not of the whole HD. The reason why it works is grub.exe's [http://grub4dos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Grub4dos_tutorial#Auto_MBR_creation Auto MBR creation] feature, which tricks <tt>bootmgr</tt> into thinking that it boots from a real HD.
* create the config file <tt>/tmp/syslinux.cfg</tt> and copy it
DEFAULT WinPE
LABEL WinPE
KERNEL /grub.exe
APPEND --config-file="map (rd) (fd0); map --hook; chainloader (fd0)+1; rootnoverify (fd0)"
INITRD /winpe3_x86part.img

mcopy -i winpe3_x86fdd.img /tmp/syslinux.cfg ::/syslinux.cfg
'''Note''': for a virtual CDROM, your <tt>syslinux.cfg</tt> should look like
DEFAULT WinPE
LABEL WinPE
KERNEL /grub.exe
APPEND --config-file="map (rd) (hd32); map --hook; root (hd32); chainloader (hd32)"
INITRD /winpe3_x86.iso
'''Note''': if your computer is low on RAM (less than 350Mb) you may also try the following <tt>syslinux.cfg</tt> with direct mapping and make sure that the payload <tt>winpe3_x86part.img</tt> is in one contiguous disk area.
DEFAULT WinPE
LABEL WinPE
KERNEL /grub.exe
APPEND --config-file="map (hd0)/winpe3_x86part.img (fd0); map --hook; chainloader (fd0)+1; rootnoverify (fd0)"
* install syslinux
syslinux winpe3_x86fdd.img
* now the image is ready. If you have write permissions for some flash media device (e.g. <tt>/dev/sdb</tt>), you can copy it with
# dd if=winpe3_x86fdd.img of=/dev/sdb
and use it for test/diagnostic tasks such as firmware upgrades.

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Windows PE