Andrew McLaren

"Mike Brannigan" <Mike.Brannigan@localhost> wrote ..

> Windows PE is now available to all users (it used to be only available to
> volume licensed customers). Windows PE is the tools for building a
> bootable

Thanks, Mike - I stand corrected. Yes, there is also Windows PE (I was also
fortunate to have access to XP WinPE, via my job).

In fairness to myself, though (or am I being too defensive? :-) ... PE gives
you a *very* reduced Windows environment, even in the Vista version. It's
basically equivalent to booting from the Vista installation media and going
to a command prompt. There's no full Explorer shell. There's no .NET
Framework. WMI is a bit better than it was under XP. There is no NTVDM for
16-bit apps. Networking is limited, there's no Server service. You can't
print. And of course ... PE automatically reboots after 24 hours!! So you
don't want to rely on it for any long-running tasks.

But, you can run multiple Win32 apps, access NTFS drives and network shares,
repartiton and reformat disks, etc etc,. So yes, PE is a brilliant useful
tool.

Cheers
Andrew