ChrisPE - a PEBakery Team release

[alacran]

The PEBakery Team are proud to present the ChrisPE project. Use this project to create WinPE from a range of 32-bit and 64-bit Windows sources, including -

Windows 7

Windows 7 (SP1)

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Windows 8

Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 Update

Windows 10

Windows RTM source files are recommended. The sources in the above list have been tested, other source files may also work.

This project has been internally tested and developed over the past two months and is now ready for a public beta release. The PEBakery Team anticipate ongoing development and the ChrisPE project is likely to continue to evolve. This may result in changes to some of the core features such as the menu system and supported shells.

Some of the current features include -

No caching of Windows source files - resulting in reduced storage space requirements on the Host OS used to build the project.

.wim support using internal PEBakery commands - the wimlib library is used for managed wim support. The full contents of the the Windows source and WinPE .wim files are not applied (extracted) to a local directory - resulting in significant time savings.

Support for a range of shells including bblean, CMD, LaunchBar and WinXShell.

WoW64 support.

This project has been developed as a base from which to add additional features.

Please note that it's been developed for use with the PEBakery builder and will not work in winbuilder as a number of commands are not supported.

Please download from the ChrisPE github repository - https://github.com/pebakery/chrispe

Instructions are included - please check the documentation in the download (readme.htm).

If you are not familiar with github - use the Clone or download button and select the Download ZIP option to download the project.

Feedback is welcome.

Please have fun.

The PEBakery Team (ied206, alacran, Atari800XL, homes32 and Misty)

Screenshot of ChrisPE with WinXShell -

EDIT: Not all the programs are in the basic download, there is a complementary pakage of scripts, I have it almost ready for upload and will be available for download very soon, new scripts are finished and working now, but under test to prevent any malfuntion, the pakage contains 25 new scripts.

alacran

[alacran]

Reserved for future use

[alacran]

The ChrisPE project is forum independent. We would like to reach as wide a target audience as possible - not everyone posts here. The release post is duplicated across the following forums (listed alphabetically) -

MSFN

My Digital Life (MDL)

reboot.pro

theoven

We will endeavour to cross reference useful information from other forums.

The scripts released with the project are a random sample we put together for testing purposes. Alacran/Taviruni is working on a number of scripts for release.

Build time using Windows 10.0.16299 source (aka Fall Creators Update, aka Version 1709) with all scripts enabled (including WoW64 in the 64-bit build) -

32-bit = 43 seconds

64-bit = 90 seconds

Test system - Lenovo X230 with 4gb RAM and a 64gb OCZ Agility 3 SSD.

1.1 GB of disk space was required for the 64-bit build - this includes a bootable .iso file.

ChrisPE uses a different approach to many other projects -

The same project can be used to create WinPE from a range of sources from Windows 7 onwards.

The wimlib library is used to extract the required files only - reducing disk space usage and saving time.

Source files are not cached. Delete the ChrisPE.Files and ProjectTemp directories to reclaim disk space.

For any developer out there, the Pebakery documentation (see here) is a very useful resource thanks to the fantastic work of homes32, ied206 and alacran.

The plan is to continue development - we need your help to achieve our future goal of adding support for the Explorer shell.

The PEBakery Team

[alacran]

Thanks to my good Friend Misty who kindly provided me for an space on his place to upload this packs, it is my pleasure to announce there are new scripts available to complement ChrisPE project:

The downloads are two packages:

Scripts Free Applications Pack containing 23 scripts for very useful applications

Scripts Proprietary Applications Pack containing 4 scripts for software you must own and provide by yourself and/or have the appropriate Licence from Author in order to be able to run them, this are:

The good old CalculatorPlus - from MS, It is in this category also because MS do not provide a link to download it anymore, I made this script for myself, I have it since long time ago and  thought some other people may have it too.  (I love this CalculatorPlus as it can run on real OS's from XP to 10).

Ghost - The excelent tool from Symantec for backup (image),  and clone disks and partitions

Ghost Explorer - The explorer for Ghost images from Symantec.

Acronis TrueImage 2018 - The excelent tool from Acronis for backup (image), and clone disks and partitions.

I have to publicly thank Atai800XL for his support, on the realization of this script. He gave all the ideas and knowhow. I only make the code. For that reason he deserves to be mentioned first as author.

I want all you to know I never before made a single script in my life, I started on this fantastic team as tester and translating the excelent PEBakery Manual to spanish (finished up to date), and only translating learned how to read and understand the scripts code, then taking Misty scripts as a guide I was able to modify one script from MistyPE tu run in this project and then I started doing mine .

I tell you all this only to let you know that making scripts for this project is not very complicated, If I did it, anybody can do it.

Download links:

Readme.txt http://alacran.mistyprojects.co.uk/Scripts for ChrisPE Project/README.txt

Free Applications: http://alacran.mistyprojects.co.uk/Scripts for ChrisPE Project/Scripts Free Applications Pack.zip

Proprietary Applications: http://alacran.mistyprojects.co.uk/Scripts for ChrisPE Project/Scripts Proprietary Applications Pack.zip

 

alacran

Edited March 12, 2018 by alacran
Update links

[alacran]

If you downloaded the Scripts Free Applications Pack, before this post was written, the HWINFO.script has an issue because the version was recently updated and the version coded for download from the script is not available anymore, to avoid this issue as this software is updated very frequently now the application is encoded in the script, the pakage has been reuploaded with this new version but if you downloaded recently and had some troubles with this script please use this individual update and run it, following instuctions and acept overwrite the previous version.

Easy way is to check on PEBakery your HWINFO script is V2 on top right as in the following picture:

 

HWINFO.txt: http://alacran.mistyprojects.co.uk/Scripts for ChrisPE Project/HWiNFO.txt

HWINFO.zip: http://alacran.mistyprojects.co.uk/Scripts for ChrisPE Project/HWiNFO.zip

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Edited March 12, 2018 by alacran
Links

[alacran]

Portable applications for your ChrisPE, or any other PE

This Portable applications, if you prefer, can replace with a portable version some scripts with same names on "Scripts Free Applications Pack", if you want to do this only deselect that scripts in order to not include them in your build. This first package contains the following applications:

 

x86 Applications may run in x64 PE if SysWoW was enabled during Build.

x64 Applications only run on x64 PE.

Download Free Portable Applications x86 & x64.zip, into it there is a README.txt, with following instructions:

Assuming you add to your PE build PStart.script, follow next instuctions please:

All you need to do is:

Extract Portables.zip to the root of any partition of your internal HD or your USB device.

If you are making a multi-Isos bootable CD/DVD, Extract Portables.zip to the root of the folder where all Isos are before making the Iso.

If your old PE did not have PStart.script when made, you will have to manually find and run ...\PStart\PStart.exe

==========================================================================================

I am making a little tutorial (will be available soon) to let you know how you can 7z compress and run your own favorite applications this way.

The advantages of this approach are:

- Keep your Portables outside of boot.wim, making it smaller wich is good for systems with low ram.

- As boot.wim is smaller it boots faster.

- Applications are copied only once to your device, and are avalible to run from any Windows PE.

- Applications are highly compressed with 7z LZMA2 compression.

- When an application is ran it is extracted/decompressed to %SystemRoot%\Temp (X:\Temp on PE, or C:\Temp on OS), and once the program is closed it is deleted from X:\Temp on PE, or C:\Temp when ran on OS, freeing the used RAM.

Edited March 15, 2018 by alacran

[alacran]

Little Tutorial for making your Portables, 7z LZMA2 compressed.

Donload:

Word docx version

PDF version

alacran from: PEBakeryTeam

Edited March 16, 2018 by alacran

[alacran]

[by "Misty"]:

A Develop branch has been added to the ChrisPE project on github (see here).

Main changes since the first update -

• Settings > Tweaks - option K] Font(s) added. This will currently add the segoeui.ttf font to the build - fixing an issue in Windows 10 based WinPE where italic fonts are displayed for icons and in other areas. Note - this has already been applied to the Master branch.
• Settings > Recommended - Network option removed from this script and moved to a seperate script (see below).
• Settings > Network - new script. This has been split from the Settings > Recommended script. Includes option to set the ComputerName. Enabling any of the options in this script will add Unattend.xml to the root of the \ChrisPE.Files\ISO.ROOT\ folder and will add an entry to run wpeinit.exe from winpeshl.ini. The unattend.xml file includes an entry for setting the default screen resolution to 1024x768. . This will probably not make any difference if using Windows 8 or newer sources, but should if Windows 6.1.7600/6.1.7601 source files are used as these sources default to low screen resolutions.
• Applications > TightVNC Server script added. This includes an option for automatically starting TightVNC Server during the WinPE boot process (automatically initializing the network).
• All Applications scripts can now be executed post build by using the Run Script button.
• Finalise > Subst - new script. Use to run subst to assign a virtual mount point for the media used to boot ChrisPE.
• Drivers > Drivers - new script. Experimental Driver integration support. Get WAIK Tools is used to download DISM - ensure that your firewall is configured to allow access to GWT.exe.

In addition to the above, a new method has been introduced for adding program shortcuts for any applications that are not encluded in boot.wim - when the Include Program in boot.wim option is disabled in the Applications scripts. Shortcuts will now be added to the menu system used in the selected shell.



The PEBakery Team

 

[alacran]

Complementary Scripts updated to v2.0 to make them compatible with new improvements on ChrisPE-Develop:

Free Applications Pack containing 25 scripts with very useful applications.

Propietary Applications Pack containing 4 scripts for software you must own and provide by yourself and have the appropriate Licence from Author in order to be able to run them, this are:

CalculatorPlus
Ghost
Ghost Explorer
Acronis TrueImage 2018

 

Please read this before download.

 

alacran

From ChrisPE Team

Edited March 18, 2018 by alacran