Continuing the series regarding installing Windows 7 over RHEL/CentOS 7 PXE Network Boot, where in the first part I have only covered setting up prerequisites on PXE Server, now in this article will be going to discuss how to build WinPE ISO image with the help of Windows Automated Installation Kit on Windows and then move the build image to PXE Server TFTP default location to access and install Windows 7 over PXE network.
Requirements
Step 1: Download and Install Windows Automated Installation Kit
1. On this second part, logon to a Windows 7 Operating System computer, go to Microsoft Download Center and download Windows Automated Installation Kit ISO image file by using the following link.
The server computer needs to be running a TFTP server and a DHCP server. The server can be any machine including Windows and Linux. The client computer should have PXE Boot enabled network card. In other words, the network card installed in the client computer should support network boot option. Change the boot sequence. After enabling the Network Boot, be sure to change the boot sequence so that Network boot is the first priority. If you don't see any network boot options in the boot sequence menu after enabling the network boot option, you will have to first save and exit the BIOS then restart the PC and enter the BIOS again. Create a custom Windows PE boot image with Configuration Manager. Add a Windows 10 operating system image using Configuration Manager. Create an application to deploy with Windows 10 using Configuration Manager. Add drivers to a Windows 10 deployment with Windows PE using Configuration Manager. Create a task sequence with Configuration Manager.
How to enable Network Boot or PXE Boot in BIOS. When you use AOMEI PXE tool or AOMEI Image Deploy to do some operations, you need to get into BIOS to set your client computers to boot from network. And then, the client computers will boot from network. Set client computers within LAN for network boot, here set GIGABYTE BIOS as an example: Enter. Here are the steps I share the AIO Boot drive: Right-click on the AIO Boot drive and select Properties. Switch to the Sharing tab. Select Advanced Sharing. Check the Share this folder box. Enter a name for the Share name. The Network Path is what I need to get, here is Whoami g.
Download Windows Automated Installation Kit
2. After AIK ISO image finishes downloading, mount the image using a Windows mount software (Daemon Tools Lite Free Edition will do the job) and install Windows Automated Installation Kit software.
Welcome to Windows AIK
Step 2: Create WinPE ISO Image on Windows 7
3. After Windows AIK software is installed on your system go to Windows Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft Windows AIK -> right click on Deployment Tools Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator and a new Windows Shell console should open on your screen.
4. Now it’s time to build the Windows 7 Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) x86 boot image by issuing the following commands on Deployment Tools Command Prompt.
Build WinPE Image
5. Although for this tutorial just the WinPE x86 Boot ISO Image is required, below you can find the commands to build PE Images for Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 8 architectures also.
To build WinPE Boot images for Windows 7 64-bit use the following commands:
To build Windows 8 32-bit WinPE bootable images run the following commands:
To build Windows 8 64-bit WinPE bootable images run the following commands:
Step 3: Copy WinPE ISO Image to CentOS PXE Server
6. After Windows 7 Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) x86 boot image has been created, use Windows Explorer to copy winpe_x86.iso image located in C:winpe_x86 windows path to PXE Samba shared directory at 192.168.1.20install network location.
Copy WinPE ISO Image PXE Server
7. After WinPE x86 ISO file is completely transferred to Samba “install” shared directory go back to PXE Server console and move this image from root’s /windows directory to TFTP windows directory path to complete the entire installation process.
Step 4: Boot and Install Windows 7 over PXE Network on Client Side
8. In order to boot and install Windows 7 via network and PXE server, first instruct the clients machines to boot over network by modifying BIOS device boot order or hit a custom key during BIOS post to select a network boot device.
After the first PXE prompt appears press F8 and Enter keys to continue and then select Install Windows 7 from PXE menu.
9. After WinPE image finishes loading, a customized minimal image of windows starts and a Command Prompt window will be displayed on screen.
Loading Windows 7 over PXE Boot
Windows 7 Command Prompt
10. In order to install Windows 7 over a Network Share, in the Command Prompt window, map the Windows installation sources (use the architecture
path you want to install), configured on PXE Samba share directory, as a Network drive.
path you want to install), configured on PXE Samba share directory, as a Network drive.
Then enter network drive share, by specifying the drive letter, and run setup.exe utility. Use the following commands to start the installation process (replace the samba network address location and network drive letter accordingly) and continue with the installation process as you normally do it from a local DVD media.
Choose Windows 7 Language
11. If you want to install the 64-bit architecture, map the specific 64-bit network path using a different letter and continue the installation procedure by following the same steps explained above.
Choose Windows 7 Install Source
12. In case the installation sources are configured with authentication use the following command switch to specify the username.
13. After both architectures installation sources had been mapped you can change between them by switching to the designated network drive letter as presented in the screenshot below.
Change Network Installation Source
Thats all! Performing Windows installations over PXE and network has a lot of advantages, such as cutting down the installation time drastically, allowing the installation process to take place the same time on multiple machines without the need to use a physical installation media.
You can also setup multiple Windows Installation Sources (using Windows or Samba shares) on different machines over your network to avoid a bottleneck on RHEL/CentOS PXE Server, in case you install Windows on multiple machines the same time, and direct the network drive maps to use those specific network sources on installation process.
Windows PE (WinPE) is a small operating system used to install, deploy, and repair Windows. This article I will introduce the method to install Windows from WinPE.See the WinPE introduction from Microsoft for more details.
- Install Windows using DISM
Download WinPE
Here I will show you 3 WinPE versions taken from Microsoft:
- WinPE 10, extracted from Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1803.
- WinPE 8.1, extracted from Windows ADK for Windows 8.1 Update.
- WinPE 7, extracted from Windows® Automated Installation Kit (AIK) for Windows® 7.
To make it easier for users to use, I’ve added some of the applications below. Run the corresponding commands from the Command Prompt to open the corresponding applications.
- fm.lnk: Explorer++.
- 7z.lnk: 7-Zip File Manager.
- mountiso.lnk: Mount new virtual disk with ImDisk.
- winntsetup.lnk: WinNTSetup, it supports Windows XP/2003/2000 installation.
You can also use WinPE 10 built from other tools, but the WinPE version here is lighter, it requires only 512MB of memory and startup time will also be faster. I think this is the most suitable version for network boot. The size of WinPE 8.1 is 135MB for 32-bit and 170MB for 64-bit.
Download all these WinPE versions at Google Drive, Yandex Disk, Mega and Fshare.
AIOCreator.exe also supports running on these WinPE versions. If you are using a 64-bit version, run the 64-bit version of AIOCreator.exe at AIOToolsAIOCreator_x64.exe.
Integration
Once downloaded, you can integrate all versions of WinPE into AIO Boot.
- Run AIOCreator.exe.
- Switch to the Integration tab, select Windows, then select WinPE 7/8.1/10 in the drop-down list.
- Select the .wim files you downloaded in turn, click OK to integrate.
- Boot into WinPE versions from the WinPE & Setup menu.
Install Windows using Setup.exe
This is the simplest way to install Windows from an ISO file. You can install Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10 with the ISO file on your hard drive or anywhere. This method can be used on the full Windows operating system, but on WinPE, you can delete or reformat the system drive.
To install Windows on a GPT hard disk, you need to boot into WinPE in UEFI mode. To install Windows on the MBR hard disk, you need to boot into WinPE in the Legacy BIOS mode.
- Run the command fm.lnk to open Explorer++.
- Select the Windows ISO file to mount it to the virtual drive.
- Run setup.exe from the virtual drive to start the installer. Some modified ISO files have removed this file, so you can run sourcessetup.exe instead. You can not run 32-bit applications on 64-bit versions of WinPE, so you need to boot into the appropriate WinPE version. If you want to use the Repair Your Computer feature, integrate the ISO into the AIO Boot.
Install Windows using DISM
To install Windows, the first thing is to create the partition. Here I will use diskpart to do this. Then use the dism command to apply a Windows version image in sourcesinstall.wim to the drive. This method allows you to install Windows on a GPT disk to boot in UEFI, regardless of whether you are booting into WinPE in Legacy BIOS mode and vice versa.
Personally I only keep the data partitions, I will delete all partitions including boot and system partitions, then recreate them. If you install multiple operating systems on this hard drive, you should consider not deleting these partitions, otherwise you will need to repair the menu, or bootloader.
Delete partitions
Use the diskpart command, then use the list disk command to list all the disks on your computer.
Select disk:
List all partitions on the selected disk:
Select the partition you want to delete, then use the delete part command to delete the partition.
Create partitions
Now just create the partition under the appropriate layout. You can refer to the Microsoft documentation for the recommended partition layout for UEFI/GPT and BIOS/MBR. As in the article, boot partition or EFI partition will be assigned to drive S:. The Windows installation partition will be W:.
Apply image
After you have created the partition for the Windows installation, we will apply the image of a Windows edition to that partition. The sourcesinstall.wim file in the Windows ISO will contain images of the Windows edition.
Use the following command to list all editions:
Output:
From the result above, the file H:sourcesinstall.wim contains 9 editions, I will select the Windows 10 Pro edition (Index : 8) to apply to the W: drive.
Output:
Windows Boot Over Network
Configure boot files
To continue with the installation process, Windows needs to be booted into the W: partition above. Use BCDBoot to configure boot files. Run the following command:
Output:
For MBR disks, use the Bootsect command to install Bootmgr and update the MBR.
Now you can reboot to continue the installation process.
Windows Server Boot From Network
Using the dism command is more advanced, it has many features that I have not tested yet. But it is also quite complex, integrating the ISO of Windows into AIO Boot is the best way for me. Wish success!