Deployment Solution

The size of the WinPE boot file looks scary when multiple clients are downloading it in a PXE boot. I have found a way to reduce the size of the boot.wim file to 33% less in size than the boot file that Boot Disk Creator creates and of course it downloads 33% faster. The end result should have a 110 Meg size WinPE boot file.

In order to create a play environment, create a second WinPE PXE configuration, meaning create a MenuOption that will not be the first WinPE. The first WInPE PXE configuration is set by default to MenuOption131. We want to play on PXE MenuOption160 or greater.

Also, this assumes that WAIK is installed in your DS server or the Altiris WInPE 2.1 installers were installed. One more thing, this example is only for x86 proc. The batch file could easily be configured to make the changes for x64 and ia64.

The following batch file could be executed stand alone or you could create a job with a run script task (at the deployment server). I am also attaching a text file with the batch file.

REM tools sets to the path where the WAIK tools are located.
REM change this if DS was not installed to the default path
set tools=C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\WAIK\Tools\

REM This points to the x86 WinPE x86 boot file
REM change this if necessary
set bootimage=C:\Program Files\Altiris\eXpress\Deployment Server\PXE\Images\MenuOption161\X86PC\sources

REM you do no need to change anything below
REM this will create a new boot.wim file and rename the old one in case you need it.

mkdir c:\winpe_2x86
mkdir c:\winpe_2x86\mount
"%tools%\x86\imagex.exe" /mountrw "%bootimage%\boot.wim" 1 C:\winpe_2x86\mount
"%tools%\x86\imagex.exe" /boot /compress maximum /capture C:\winpe_2x86\Mount "%bootimage%\bootnew.wim" "WinPE2"
"%tools%\x86\imagex.exe" /unmount C:\winpe_2x86\mount
copy "%bootimage%\boot.wim" "%bootimage%\bootold.wim"
copy "%bootimage%\bootnew.wim" "%bootimage%\boot.wim"

If interested I could guide you on how to add other packages that are not added by default WinPE HTA package, WinPE MDAC package, WinPE Scripting-Package (included), WinPE WMI package (included), WinPE XML package.