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Build BartPE CD using PE Builder

Please Note: This tutorial was inspired by a posting on the CD forum by Dr. Hoang entitled 'Some Guidelines For Any Newbie Of Winpe'.

Important note: PEBuilder has been updated. The updated interface is not reflected in the screenshots in this tutorial. So please don't be confused. The screenshots will be updated in the near future.

This intention behind this tutorial is to allow any newcomer (the so-called newbie) to BartPE to build his /her own version of BartPE with all the plugins that he/she requires. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please take a look at overview to bartpe . Now before you start building any CDs you have to check out the basic requirements:

Bare Necessities to build BartPE:

• You should be running Windows 2000/XP/2003. PE Builder does not run on Windows NT4/ME/9x. I would recommend using Windows XP or 2003. (I'm assuming you already have a license to one of these OS)
• You should have access to the source files of Win XP/2003 (from the installation CD or from a your hard disk). This is a necessity because PE Builder uses the core system files from the installation source to build BartPE.
• You'll have to download the latest version of PE Builder from the nu2.nu web site. Please make sure you have the latest version, because Bart releases updates quite frequently. You'll then have downloaded a zip file named pebuilder30xx.zip.
• If you intend to burn the iso (I don't know what else you can do with it!) you'll also need a CD writer at some point after completing the build.

Preparations before building BartPE:

1. Extract the pebuilder zip file you downloaded (pebuilder30xx.zip) to an empty folder of your choice. Make sure you keep the directory structure intact! For the purpose of this tutorial let's assume that you extracted to D:\BartPE. Then you'll find two folders in D:\BartPE named as 'doc' and 'plugin' along with some files. Please read pebuilder.hlp from the root of the folder if you face any problems.
2. Adding required plugins:
1. Adding plugins is a 3 step process. First let me describe a plugin to help you understand.
   In the PEBuilder download, Bart has included some plugins such as the A43 File Manager plugin. This plugin includes with it all the files required for the proper functioning of A43 File Manager. This plugin could be seen as a model for just about any other plugin you might use with PE Builder. In the \plugin\a43 directory you'll find 3 files and one directory. The files are
1. a43.inf
2. a43.php
3. a43_nu2menu.xml

The directory is named 'files'. In this directory, we place all relevant files to the plugin as per the instructions in a43.php (a help file in html format). The file named 'a43.inf' is the file that contains the information necessary to add the application to BartPE. For more info on the inf file please take a look at pe builder create plugin . The file named a43_nu2menu.xml is used to add the application to the nu2menu which is the default shell for BartPE. Almost any other plugin is ordered in the same way. Please read the help file for the specific plugins (usually a html file) for more detailed information on what to include in the plugin folder for the plugin to work.

2. The first step is to download the plugin file (if not included with PE Builder) and copy the contents of the plugin archive (usually a cab or zip archive) into a separate folder into the plugin directory.
3. Then read the plugin help file and find out if any additional files are required by the plugin. If so, copy the relevant files into the relevant folders in the plugin directory. If a dll file which is required is not on your system search the internet for the file. www.dll-files.com may be a good place to start looking.
4. The third step is to enable the plugin after checking that all necessary files are copied. This can be done either through PE Builder or by directly editing the inf file in the [PEBuilder] section. A value of "0" disables the plugin and a value of "1" enables the plugin.
3. Before coming to the third step please make sure that you have added all the desired plugins that you need. If any more plugins are needed please go back to the second step.If you want to build the CD without any additional What's that? you've added all the plugins! Ok, time to build BartPE. Run the pebuilder.exe file located in the root directory (D:\BartPE). What you get is an introductory screen of the PE Builder.

Click next..

4. On the next screen you'll be asked the location of Windows setup files. Please give the exact path to the source files. This is essential for us to get to the next step!

You can use the search button to allow PE Builder to automatically search your system for the source files. But if you know the path, it would be much quicker to just enter the correct path directly. You can check the validity of the path using the check button. If the path is valid you might get a dialog box like this. Please note that I used Windows XP with service pack slipstreamed as the source.

Check if source source is valid

You can also add additional custom directories to the BartPE CD. But that is outside of our discussion and irrelevant to our purpose. If you add any folders here, they will simply be present at the root directory of the CD.

5. Enabling and disabling plugins through PE Builder:
   When you have entered the path, please click next. The next dialog box allows you to control which plugins should be enabled and which should be disabled. Only those that are enabled are added to the CD. You can also use this dialog box to view the plugin help or the plugin inf file for a particular plugin.

After deciding what to add you can click next. Sometimes when you click next or when you try to enable a plugin, a dialog box like this pops up:

This simply means that one or more of the files that are required for a certain plugin have not been found. This means that you have to locate the missing files and add them to the correct locations as specified by the plugin help file. In my current case I tried to enable the 'Paragon HDD Manager' plugin. I've missed adding the file "readme.rtf" required by 'Paragon HDD Manager' to the files folder. So there is a error message. When these errors pop-up, just disable the plugin for the time being and click next to check if any other plugin has any problems. If everything else is fine, click prev to go to the previous window, make necessary corrections to the plugin(s) and come back to this window by clicking next.

6. After correcting all the plugin problems, when you click next, you're brought to the following window:

Output Window - select output directory

In this you can select the output directory of the PE Builder. The output directory is the place where PE Builder stores all the files after building the CD. You can also choose to build the iso file. In this case, you will have to specify the file name of the iso and where it is to be saved. Make sure that there is enough space in the drive you specify. The size of your build depends on the number and size of your plugins. My PE Build comes to around 300 MB. If you add plugins like the open office plugin, then expect the size to be much larger!
After deciding the directory, click next..

1. Now the actual build process of the BartPE begins. You'll see a window similar to this one:

Building BartPE!

After the build process is completed, if all goes well there will be no more errors and you can click next to build the iso in the next step. However as it often happens, errors can and have occurred. In this case you can browse the log for the errors and fix them yourself. Most of the errors occur due to problems in some plugin or combination of plugins. If you have no idea how to correct the errors (as it happens to me :), please visit www.911cd.net/forums (if you are new please register there) and post your problem with all the details including the errors mentioned in the 'pebuilder.log' file. You sure to get the problems solved with the help from the forum members. It is a great forum and any problem you post will get sorted out. You can also checkout bartpe faq to see if your problem has been answered.

Always Test your BartPE Build:

Okay now that you've completed building the iso image, do you simply burn it into the CD-R? Wouldn't be the best idea. First it is recommended you test it. You can do this in different ways. The best way would be to use some software like Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Workstation. But these are not the cheapest solutions. Sometimes the best way would be to use a rewritable CD and burn the iso onto this CD for testing. If you would like to make some more changes to you BartPE, say change your shell or remove a non-working plugin, you can create the iso again and burn it on the same CD without wasting any new CDs. Remember to always checkup your iso using these methods so that when you do burn your CD onto a brand new CD-R, it will be perfect.

That's it. Contact me if you face any problems, or you just feel so lonely :) Your comments are always welcome.
May 8, 2004