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TECH198
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Creating/building WindowsPE for physical systems

Not sure weather this can a real contributing factor, but can I build WindowsPE or alternative builders (eg BartPE) in a emulation environment like VMWare Fusion, and except it to work on physical machines ?

The idea why i'm wondering, or hesitating, is due to emulated hardware in a VM, compared to physical hardware on a PC..

Would i have better compatibility if i build from physical system ? or would it be, just adding more drivers be he only drawback in emulation?

Has anyone successfully done and tested this? Also it people have done this under Fusion, what driver would be recommended, if needed.

for SATA/RAID and video and Networking support, or even USB?

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pfruth
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TECH198

I see no reason you shouldn't be able to do this

Assuming you have a functioning Windows 10 OS instance running in a Fusion guest VM, you should be able to;

- Install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and the associated Windows PE addon [*1]

- Create a Windows PE ISO image (There are many YouTube videos showing how to do this.  Like this one [*2])

- Use a tool to burn the resulting ISO image to a CD/DVD, or create a bootable USB (there are lots of tools out there to do this.  I like to use Rufus [*3])

- Take the resulting bootable media (beit a CD/DVD or USB) to a physical machine and boot from it.


Give it a try, let us know if it works.

EDIT: You can never mind that bit about using Rufus to create a bootable USB.  It appears the MakeWinPEMedia.cmd command [*4] has a command line switch that enables direct creation of a bootable USB.  For example, you would insert a USB drive in an available USB port, allow it to connect to the Win10 VM (lets assume Windows recognizes it as the e: drive), and then run: MakeWinPEMedia.cm /UFD c:\Win10PE e:
The resulting USB drive can then be booted from on a physical machine (assuming the machine supports booting from USB, or can be configured to do so).

I just tried this.  It works!

[*1] - Download and install the Windows ADK | Microsoft Docs

[*2] - How to Create Windows 10 WinPE Boot Disk - YouTube

[*3] - Rufus (software) - Wikipedia

[*4] - Makewinpemedia Command-Line Options | Microsoft Docs

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pfruth
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TECH198

I see no reason you shouldn't be able to do this

Assuming you have a functioning Windows 10 OS instance running in a Fusion guest VM, you should be able to;

- Install the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and the associated Windows PE addon [*1]

- Create a Windows PE ISO image (There are many YouTube videos showing how to do this.  Like this one [*2])

- Use a tool to burn the resulting ISO image to a CD/DVD, or create a bootable USB (there are lots of tools out there to do this.  I like to use Rufus [*3])

- Take the resulting bootable media (beit a CD/DVD or USB) to a physical machine and boot from it.


Give it a try, let us know if it works.

EDIT: You can never mind that bit about using Rufus to create a bootable USB.  It appears the MakeWinPEMedia.cmd command [*4] has a command line switch that enables direct creation of a bootable USB.  For example, you would insert a USB drive in an available USB port, allow it to connect to the Win10 VM (lets assume Windows recognizes it as the e: drive), and then run: MakeWinPEMedia.cm /UFD c:\Win10PE e:
The resulting USB drive can then be booted from on a physical machine (assuming the machine supports booting from USB, or can be configured to do so).

I just tried this.  It works!

[*1] - Download and install the Windows ADK | Microsoft Docs

[*2] - How to Create Windows 10 WinPE Boot Disk - YouTube

[*3] - Rufus (software) - Wikipedia

[*4] - Makewinpemedia Command-Line Options | Microsoft Docs

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