On Fri, 23 Feb 2007 21:36:08 -0800, redi311
Well this makes sense to me now, but the documentation seems to tote all
through it that you can also make a flat bootable iso, but then neglects to
tell us how to...
It might have been a WinPE Team blog that described it, or posts in
the CD forums (there's lots of "wild" knowledge there).
Let's look again... Google( WinPE Team Blog )... ooo, shiny things!!
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/w...sta-Imaging-and-Installation-Performance.aspx
Ah, here's the blog I was looking for...
http://blogs.msdn.com/winpe/
....but I don't see the info I wanted... this is interesting:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsvista/aa905120.aspx
"needs 256M RAM" eh? Still... nothing on not running from RAM drive.
OK, let's go to the forum:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=68784c6c4bc00a3f76095fe5fa0f32fa&act=idx
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19010
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/WinBuilder-t5.html
Ah! On-topic at last - HD booted WinPE with no RAM disk:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18971
Prolly assumes home disk is writable, if so it won't work for CD.
Ah, this is a handy tutorial!
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18758
Nice thread topic, shame about the posts:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18859
I understand that the requirement matches vista, but the BDD and the AIK
documentation tote that you can use WDS and/or Windows PE CD's to load
"Windows Vista AND Windows XP SP2"
True. Not sure if the WinPE 2.0 code base is the same for both Vista
and XP, or whether the XP one is smaller?
This is horse manure if you have less than 512MB of RAM... without those
instructions on how to make the direct boot cd, or a 3rd party product which
is what I'm trying to get away from.
For maintenance of XP, I reckon Bart PE is just so much further ahead
that I just use that; it's because Vista breaks compat with some core
Bart functionalities that I'm looking at WinPE.
OTOH, whereas WinPE is purely designed for pre-install setup, Bart is
more maintenance-orientated. Or maybe that's just me; perhaps other
folks are using Bart in the WinPE space as well?
A core difference is that Bart is designed to run from read-only disk,
using a separate RAM disk for work space that can be scaled back to 4M
or less if you're happy to direct %Temp% to HD instead. WinPE 2.0 is
designed to run from the same RAM disk it uses for workspace, and that
may mean it can't run from read-only disk.
I've looked quite hard for an answer and haven't found one, so maybe
the above is the reason why "it can't be done". I may have read
no-RAM-disk WinPE only in the context of HD or USB boot, where the
disk on which WinPE resides is writable.
I don't *want* my xp clients to run less RAM than that, but sometimes
budget determines the platforms.
Sure; XP in even 128M is OK, and Bart is OK down to 64M without
stress, or 32M or less if you get tight with no RAM disk etc.
We aren't rolling Vista out just yet, but we wanted to start using the newer
tools to do the deployments so we are using the same thing from here on out.
You may be better on Bart, if mainly XP-orientated and especially if
maintaining existing installations rather than just nuking and
rebuilding, or building new boxen.
I was hoping I'd be able to find how to use a consistent tool to deploy all
my hardware, and not have to do bart discs for one set and the pe discs/PXE
for others.
Yep, I can see how that would be nice. I've used Bart for years, but
not for building new installs. Maybe a drop-in HD with WinPE running
from that? No, that gets ugly in other ways...
I had hoped to be able to put this PE build onto a cd for the lower memory
clients so it looks the same to my lower end pc installation techs that are
just loading the images. The fewer the number of procedures they have to
remember the better.
What I'd do, is hang around the CD forums, or post a new thread there.
There are sections for WinPE as well as Bart, though the Bart side may
be more active; more posters, more plugins, etc.
It's funny, because a Holy Grail for us Bart folks is to free up the
optical drive by running in RAM disk, or booting from USB stick, both
of which as within WinPE's documented feature set.
My approach is likely to handle Vista from a RAM-disk-based WinPE,
that uses my Bart CDR or DVDR (yep, the Bart toolset is getting
laaarge) as the toolkit. This may be a good way to rationalize your
dev, i.e. have both Bart CDR and WinPE CDR use a common cross-tested
toolset on the Bart CDR.
Then again, if all you'll be doing is Format /FS:NTFS and ImageX, you
don't need much of a toolset, beyond BING and MemTest86.
--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -
Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!
