I'd like to tell the community about a little utility called PE Builder

acemcmac

Lifer
Mar 31, 2003
13,712
1
0
I did a surface surch and did not see any posts on the topic...

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a bootable Window CD-Rom or DVD from Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.

It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.

This will replace any Dos bootdisk (even masterpieces like modboot and Bart's Network Bootdisk) in no time!

PE Builder is not a Microsoft product and does not create Microsoft Windows Pre-installation Environment ("WinPE").

Using PE Builder does not grant you a license to Microsoft WinPE or to use the Windows XP or Server 2003 binaries in a manner other than stated in the End-User License Agreement include in your version of Microsoft Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has not reviewed or tested PE Builder and does not endorse its use.

Words can not even begin to describe how useful cd-r's created with this utility have been to me, and now that I know how to create my own.... :evil:

PE Builder
 

gaidin123

Senior member
May 5, 2000
962
1
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Yes PEBuilder is fantastic. I've been using it to ghost vmware machines lately. :)

The UBCD for Windows project is a nice addendum to all but the newest PEBuilder build (they majorly changed the way network and storage drivers are handled and UBCD hasn't updated last I checked). UBCD is just a large collection of plugins that you dump into the PEBuilder plugins directory. I've found some very useful stuff in it. The UBCD guy also tossed in some driver that let me read/write to a new Compaq disk array that a normal Ghost boot disk and PEBuilder couldn't handle.

But yes PEBuilder is the closest thing you can get to a bootable, usable Windows environment. I've used them for copying files off of unbootable systems, ghosting a lot of machines/servers, disk checking, etc. There is nothing better out there for Windows machines. Knoppix is the close second but still isn't Windows like PEBuilder.

Gaidin

EDIT:The UBCD for windows has been updated along with a standalone driver pack in the new format. I'm updating my images now. :)
 

Tarrant64

Diamond Member
Sep 20, 2004
3,203
0
76
Well, from reading this and the comment about Knoppix, am I to assume that this PE builder, kinda creates an OS that you can boot from you CD? And from there you can manage some files and do things like ghosting or backing up files?
 

TechnoPro

Golden Member
Jul 10, 2003
1,727
0
76
Originally posted by: lnguyen
coworker of mine just used it to get data off a dying HD that could barely boot windows. great utility

That's where I've found great use of it before too, in data recovery.
 

gaidin123

Senior member
May 5, 2000
962
1
0
Originally posted by: Tarrant64
Well, from reading this and the comment about Knoppix, am I to assume that this PE builder, kinda creates an OS that you can boot from you CD? And from there you can manage some files and do things like ghosting or backing up files?

Yes, PE Builder is based in some part on Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment) which OEMs can purchase to create custom Windows install CDs for their customers. Thankfully, Bart found a way to copy files off of existing Windows CDs and only had to supplement a few critical utilities (ie network support) that were proprietary to Windows PE, At least that's what I got from reading his posts when he started this project.

Gaidin
 

CQuinn

Golden Member
May 31, 2000
1,656
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Originally posted by: gaidin123

Thankfully, Bart found a way to copy files off of existing Windows CDs and only had to supplement a few critical utilities (ie network support) that were proprietary to Windows PE, At least that's what I got from reading his posts when he started this project.

Actually, from the real Barts PE Builder site

"Note: Previous versions of PE Builder did instruct the enduser to download certain WinPE network components from the internet when enabling the network support, but v3.0.30 and higher have built-in network support. "

But thanks acemcmac, for reminding us of this useful utility, since it has been updated a bit since
I last checked it.



 

Alex

Diamond Member
Oct 26, 1999
6,995
0
0
wow awesome!
i have recently been working a lot on my Repair CDs for my computer fixing cd-wallet and this will make a great addition... i've never had to use one of these (or a knoppix) but its good to know that its there in case you need it! :)