Because these installations only start from a Win32/Win64 environment, we must build a PE-Image which is used to start up the installation.
To install a 64-bit version of Windows you must use a 64-bit version of Windows PE. Likewise, to install a 32-bit version of Windows, you must use a 32-bit version of Windows PE.
Microsoft Reference
Therefore you need the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK):download it
This site provides you with an ISO file, which may then be burnt to a CD or mounted by a virtual machine. The content of this CD must be installed in an OS mentioned in the previous system requirements.
Creating a PE
The console commands for creating Windows PE in 32- or 64-bit versions are nearly the same, except for the entries below. These have to be set to either x86 , amd64 or ia64.
Creating an environment:
Start a terminal as administrator (Start ⇒ Programs ⇒ Accessories ⇒ right click on „Command Prompt“ ⇒ Run as… ⇒ Administrator) and run the following command:
(Remark: The file startnet.cmd will be created by the opsi linux boot image after the script setup.py is executed. The startnet.cmd contains the call to wpeinit.)
Copy the directory C:\winpe\ISO (with the target name winpe) to /opt/pcbin/install/win7/ (or /opt/pcbin/install/win2008).
Adjust the file access rights by entering(e.g.):
Extending a PE
In some cases it is useful to extend a PE. Especially when using Dell-Hardware. Dell provides special network and storage drivers for use in PE. These instructions only work with Windows 7. (Windows Vista does not inherit the needed DISM- Deployment Image Servicing and Management.) These instructions assume that you have already completed the chapter "Creating a PE".
Note
The Windows Automated Installation Kit is not needed for following instructions.
The first step is to download Dell-PE-drivers from the Dell-Website. For Windows 7, you will need the WINPE 3.0 Drivers from Dell. The downloaded CAB-File must be extracted to localdisk. This can be done with 7zip or the command-line-tool Expand.exe. For simplicity, we recommend creating a directory called "dell-driver" on the localdisk, and then extracting the CAB-File into this directory.
Use dism to scan the image, in order to determine the required index number. Normally a PE-image is a one-image-file, so you can use the index 1, but it is better to check at first. Start a terminal as administrator (Start ⇒ Programs ⇒ Accessories ⇒ right click on „Command Prompt“ ⇒ Run as… ⇒ Administrator) and run the following command:
If the architecture is 32Bit, the x64 must be replaced with x86. The Driver-CAB from Dell inherits drivers for both architectures.
Note
If only one driver has to be integrated, then leave out the option /Recurse, and point directly to the driver-inf-File instead of the driver-directory. With the option /ForceUnsigned it is possible to integrate unsigned drivers to the image.
For the changes to be committed, the images must be unmounted:
Copy the directory C:\winpe\ISO with the target name winpe to /opt/pcbin/install/win7/ (or /opt/pcbin/install/win2008).Adjust the file access rights by entering(e.g.):
