EasyBCD fully supports loading Windows PE from both mutable and immutable sources. Windows PE can be either in the form of a single .WIM file1, an “extracted ramdisk” layout which is basically the contents of a WIM extracted to a local folder, or from a VHD image.

As Windows PE is often used as the environment for repair and recovery software, it is often useful to set up a bootable USB to boot into Windows PE sources.

EasyBCD adding new WinPE entry screen

EasyBCD adding new WinPE entry screen

Type
As mentioned earlier, EasyBCD can load Windows PE either from a WIM archive or from a WIM file that has been extracted to a folder (or, for that matter, the folder from which a WIM file was once made). If you have a .WIM file (examples: install.wim is on Windows Vista/7/8 setup DVDs and contains the Windows installer, boot.wim is normal for bootable repair CDs) you’ll need to choose the “WIM Image (Ramdisk)” option. If you’re trying to load Windows PE from a folder that contains the contents of what should be a WIM file, you’ll need to use the “extracted filesystem” option here instead.

Name
Assign a name to appear in the list of operating systems at boot time to represent this Windows PE entry in the BCD.

Path
Browse for the .WIM file (or the folder containing the extracted WIM file if using that option). If you’re trying to create a “swiss-army USB,” the .WIM file must be located on the same USB. Otherwise, the .WIM file can be loaded from anywhere accessible to your PC at boot time (i.e. local disks, no network shares, etc.).

EMS Enabled
For advanced use only, indicates that “Emergency Management Services” will be enabled. EMS allows for remote administration of a machine (typically for servers).

Force Portable Entry
Deprecated. Newer versions of EasyBCD automatically determine whether an entry is being created for use as part of a bootable “swiss army USB” or not.

 


  1. WIM stands for Windows Imaging Format. Unlike other filesystem containers such as VHD or squashfs, WIM is a file-level imaging format, meaning the lowest level of information it models pertains to files and not, say, the underlying bytes or blocks.