2766: Acronis Backup & Recovery 10: Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x

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Last update: 04-10-2010

How to create or modify WinPE 2.x images to have Acronis Plug-in included

This article applies to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Build 11133 or lower. For Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 Build 11345 or higher see Acronis Backup & Recovery 10: Using Acronis Media Builder to Build WinPE with Acronis Plug-In.

Introduction

Acronis WinPE ISO Builder provides three methods of integrating Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 with WinPE 2.x:

  • Adding the Acronis Plug-in to the existing PE 2 ISO;
  • Creating the PE 2 ISO with the plug-in from scratch;
  • Adding the Acronis Plug-in to a WIM file.

To be able to perform any of the above, you need to have both Acronis WinPE ISO Builder and Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) installed on the same Windows machine:

Install AIK:

  1. Download and install AIK:

    AIK for Windows Vista (PE 2.0):

    http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=C7D4BC6D-15F3-4284-9123-679830D629F2&displaylang=en

    AIK for Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008 (PE 2.1):

    http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=94bb6e34-d890-4932-81a5-5b50c657de08&DisplayLang=en

  2. [optional] Burn the AIK to DVD or copy to a flash drive;

  3. Install the Microsoft .NET Framework v.2.0 from this kit (NETFXx86 or NETFXx64, depending on your hardware.)

  4. Install Microsoft Core XML (MSXML) 5.0 or 6.0 Parser from this kit;

  5. Install Windows AIK from this kit.

  6. Install Acronis WinPE ISO Builder:

  1. Run the Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 setup file;
  2. Choose Acronis WinPE ISO Builder and install it.

Solution

Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x ISO

  1. Do one of the following:

    When adding the plug-in to the existing WinPE 2 ISO, unpack all files of your Win PE 2 ISO to a separate folder on the hard disk.

    When creating a new PE 2 ISO:

    • Select from the Start menu Microsoft Windows AIK -> Windows PE Tools Command Prompt
    • Run the copype.cmd script to create a folder with Windows PE files. For example, from a command prompt, type:

    cd Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\

    copype [arch] [destination]

    Where [arch] is the hardware architecture (can be x86, amd64, or ia64, but Acronis supports x86 only) and [destination] is a path to the local folder. For example,

    copype x86 c:\winpe_x86

  2. Select Acronis WinPE ISO Builder from the Start menu;

  3. Specify path to the folder with the WinPE files;

  4. Specify path to the folder with the Acronis Plug-in files. (Check the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\WinPE\Settings\WinPE for the plug-in location);

  5. Choose whether you want to create ISO or WIM image;

  6. Specify the full path to the resulting image file including the file name;

  7. Check your settings in the summary screen and click Proceed;

  8. Burn the .ISO to CD or DVD using a third-party tool or copy to a flash drive.

Once a machine boots into WinPE, Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 will start automatically.

To create a WinPE image (ISO file) from the resulting WIM file:

  1. Replace the default boot.wim file in your Windows PE folder with the newly created WIM file. For the above example, type:

    copy c:\AcronisMedia.wim c:\winpe_x86\ISO\sources\boot.wim

  2. Use the Oscdimg tool. For the above example, type:

    oscdimg -n –bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso

Adding Acronis Plug-in to WinPE 2.x WIM

  1. Select Acronis WinPE ISO Builder from the Start menu;
  2. Specify path to the source WINPE.WIM file. The standard path to this file for x86 hardware is \Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\x86\winpe.wim
  3. Specify path to the folder with the Acronis plug-in files. (Check the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Acronis\WinPE\Settings\WinPE for the plug-in location);
  4. Specify the full path to the resulting WIM file including the file name;
  5. Check your settings in the summary screen and click Proceed.

For how to create a PE image (ISO file) from the resulting WIM file please see the previous section.

More information

For more information on customizing Windows PE, see the Windows Preinstallation Environment User's Guide (Winpe.chm).

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