For anyone working with OSD for more than about 4 minutes, you know that its in the WinPE phase most of the magic happens. For testing and troubleshooting purposes its quite helpful to add some tools to your boot image, so you always have them available without having to download from a web server or file server etc.
Note: When adding tools to WinPE, make sure to copy the right architecture. X64 versions of WinPE can only run native x64 tools.
And, If you are missing a useful tool for WinPE, please let me know in the comments below, and I'll be happy to add it to the list.
DaRT
Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), which part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), has been around for quite some time and contains many useful tools. For example:
- Remote Connection
- File Explorer
- Secure Disk Wipe
Here is a post about adding DaRT to WinPE, and to launch it as part of the WinPE boot process:
Adding DaRT to ConfigMgr Boot Images – And starting it earlier than early – Deployment Research
Tip: If you want to learn more about the WinPE boot process, check out this excellent post from Michael Niehaus (@mniehaus):
Windows PE startup, revisited – Out of Office Hours (oofhours.com)
Sysinternals Tools
The following Sysinternals Tools are useful in WinPE. Just make sure to copy the right architecture. X64 versions of WinPE can only run x64 tools.
- Zoomit, to Zoom in during presentations, or for taking screenshots in WinPE (not many people know the last option)
- Process Explorer
- Process Monitor
NotePad++
Yes, NotePad++ runs fine in WinPE, just download the portable version and copy it to your boot image.
Explorer++
Explorer++ is a lightweight file manager for WinPE (and Windows). Thank you Yohan Eranga for the tip!
CMTrace.exe
CMtrace, which is included by default in ConfigMgr boot images, but not MDT boot images, are useful to read log files.
Note: Even while available for download from the public Microsoft downloads site. CMTrace is not freeware, usage rights are included with the Configuration Manager license. However, I got this note from the product team: One thing we realized is that the tools are on the evaluation ISO, and licensed as such, anyone downloading the evaluation is covered for the duration of the evaluation period.
Network Monitor
Good old Network Monitor from Microsoft works in WinPE. Here is a post on how to add it: How to run Microsoft Network Monitor in WinPE – Deployment Research
ServiceUI.exe
ServiceUI.exe is useful when you need to interact with a ConfigMgr task sequence in full Windows. Meaning ServiceUI.exe is actually not a tool you need in WinPE, but it's helpful to have it in WinPE, so you can easily copy it to your offline Windows image.
Ghost
I bet you didn't expect this one on the list 🙂 But good old Ghost and other disk cloning or disk backup software can still be useful for full disk backup scenarios, for example when being hit by ransomware.
Explorer++ is another tool I recommend. I keep imageX just in case
Great tip, thank you! I updated the blog post to include this tool (with proper credits, of course 🙂 )
Hi, is there a way to make the winpe size larger. I need more space for temporary installs
You can modify the scratchspace size via dism before booting the image. You can also create a pagefile in WinPE via wpeutil.
Thanks I'll try.
Brilliant!! Good ol' GHOST. Brilliant tool and is what I've finally figured how to boot into using winpe. ZTreeWin file explorer is the other brilliant tool I use in this environment. To go off piste – it took me many tries to perfect booting into ghost and sometimes MakwWinPEMedia dumps a vast number of language folders all over the place into the boot media and sometimes it doesn't. What's the bare minimum structure required by WinPE??
I haven't seen the MakeWinPEMedia script fail, but you can user PowerShell as well. Here is an example (just remove the PowerShell 7 lines if you don't want to add it): https://www.deploymentresearch.com/adding-powershell-7-to-winpe/
When run ZoomIt in WinPE. The GUI starts but when I click OK I get an error "Error configuring auto start: System cannot find the file. Any idea what's wrong?
That's a known issue when starting ZoomIt in WinPE. It will still run though.
How did you get Explorer into WinPE? Is there any DaRT explorer.exe? Or is it that .cab file mentioned earlier? Another question, I downloaded notepad++ and put it in WinPE's ProgramFiles, but how do I create a pointer to the environment variable that is capable of typing only notepad++ as is already done by typing notepad?
Hi Deilson,
The DaRT components do come with an Explorer application, yes. As far as a pointer to the environment variables I haven't tried, but it should be doable even in WinPE.
Re putting CMTrace.exe in MDT boot images. Do you have a link to any info on the change to the lic agreement which allows us to do this without having the client licensed for SCCM? I'm sure I read microsoft got nice about the lic for cmtrace but can't find where I read it now I'm looking for it again.
Life without MEMCM is sad I miss it ; (
I haven't seen any changes to the CMTrace.exe license, AFAIK it is still included only with the Configuration Manager license. However, I got this note from the product team: One thing we realized is that the tools are on the evaluation ISO, and licensed as such, anyone downloading the evaluation is covered for the duration of the evaluation period.
Very cool stuff! And YES, I'm still using Ghost 11 for preparing my training classes computers as quick as possible … Using good old WinPE X86 32 Boot WinPE customized boot.wim for that, many other tools integrated there too 🙂 The same thing still works with actual Win10 Versions (even if – as recommended – UEFI HD Design) 🙂 Unfortunately MSFT do NOT support or develop DaRT (MDOP) tools anymore 🙁 Will post you the tools (portable apps) I've integrated into MY WinPE (32 bit) images … and the same for 64 Bit versions of winpe … "Doc Windows" from… Read more »
Sounds good, thanks. And even if DaRT is no longer developed, most of the tools still work. Especially the remote viewer i found very useful (when not using VNC instead)
What will be the total size of this WIM file? Do you clean/compress it for networks that are bandwidth challenged? My suggestion is to show readers the DISM commands with a before/after screen shot 🙂
Not very big, the tools are quite small. If you add all it typically adds 40-50 MB to the boot image, which is not that big of a deal since you are about to deploy a 4-5 GB WIM image anyway.