WinPE CD

Microsoft Windows PE is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful and coolest new technologies in the last 5 years, and it's also one of the most under-hyped and under-utilized new technologies. A decade or more ago most serious computer users had their own special DOS boot disks (I still have them in my office). Few machines these days come with floppy drives, plus what you can effectively do with 1.44MB worth of space is very limited. That's where WinPE comes in. It's the new diagnostic platform of choice. I believe everyone should create and keep a WinPE CD with them. Keep it in your office, or if you're on the go a lot, keep it in your laptop bag. You'll never know when you'll need it, but when you do need it you'll be glad you have it. So now is the time to create one.

Unfortunately, creating a WinPE bootable CD (or USB drive) isn't a simple straightforward process. Here are the steps you'll need to go through:

Download and install WAIK from Microsoft.
From the start menu run the newly created WAIK Command Prompt.
Run "copype.cmd x86 c:\winpe"
Run "copy c:\winpe\winpe.wim c:\winpe\ISO\sources\boot.wim"
Run "oscdimg -n -bC:\winpe\etfsboot.com C:\winpe\ISO C:\winpe\winpe.iso"

This will create your ISO image (C:\winpe\winpe.iso) which you can burn onto a CD. If you wish to customize WinPE, between steps 4 and 5 you can copy files and programs into the C:\winpe\ISO folder. After creating your CD I suggest you boot it at least once. To make sure it worked, but also to make sure you understand what WinPE looks like and how to use it. WinPE's interface is a command prompt, so you'll need to know basic commands in order to get work done.

What can you do from WinPE? A better question is what can't you do from WinPE. You can run diagnostics on your system if you're having problems. You can scan for viruses, trojans, or rootkits without fear of further infection. You can create and restore images of your system. You can defrag your hard drive without any locked files. The sky's the limit - so create your WinPE CD now and see what ideas you come up with.