Ghost Solution Suite

Hi

I've created 6 images which can all sit nicely on a a 'Ghost Boot Wizard' created USB stick. I want to make this a little more automated - I can currently restore any of the images by following the menus within Ghost - but I'll be passing this stick onto another department who distribute our PCs and they won't want anything other than one or two clicks.

Ideally I'd like some kind of GUI (Or best 6 icons on the WinPE desktop!) that appears at the start and restores any one of the 6 images. I've managed to tweak command line options to get it to boot up and restore one of the images but I'd like the option to select.

What would you recommend? Is there some worked example of this?

Thanks for your help

Andy

WinPE allows you to create a GUI using an HTA file. WinPE also supports WMI assuming that functionality was loaded when the image was created. You can use WMI to detect the chassis and then select the appropriate image from the ones stored locally through a look up table. Frankly, you could make it entirely hands off if you have only one image choice per chassis.

Hi

Thanks for the information. What would I do to kick of an HTA file during the startup process? Is there a worked example of this?

The entire WinPE image is created using Ghost Boot Wizard so I'm really not sure how to tap into it. Whatever I do seems to make little difference. The only change I can seem to do is add parameters to the ghost command in the boot wizard which as you say can result in a hands off restore of a single image.

I've set echos in all batch files on the USB stick it created and I don't see any of the when it boots... Even more strange to me, the X drive which is on the machine once booted up has all these batch files without modification. F drive (the USB stick has my modifications - where does X Drive get the identical files without my modifications?

I tried mounting the boot.wim file on my own laptop and that seems to be a blank image of WinPE without any bells or whistles (or Ghost files containing Start.bat). Maybe I missed something...

Andy

My article here: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe will allow you to build your own WinPE environment and learn how to mount and edit the boot.wim file where all the action takes place.  The startup batch file will be within the boot.wim

My particular solution was to add some code to the startup file in boot.wim which searches for the original boot media (eg on f:) and then looks for, and runs if found, a file called go.bat.

I can then edit go.bat without having to modify the wim, to run my HTA file.

Send me your email and I will mail you an example HTA file