Solved Creating WIN11 Bootable USB drive with Rufus

SIW2 · Mar 26, 2024

@Ramesh Sharma

@BobOmb

You can try this. Only for 64 bit windows and 64 bit wim file. I might include 32 bit stuff later. This is a first attempt

Extract the zip to the root of a partition so you have e.g. c:\add-to-wim

run add-to-wim.cmd as adminstrator

it will ask you to browse to a bootable wim file e.g. boot.wim or winre.wim

ADD-TO-WIM.zip

only included a few things to keep the size down.
You can add extra programs and adjust the pemenu.wcs if desired ( it is just a text file )

It should work for win7, win 8, win 8.1, win10, win11 and probably also works for vista

BobOmb · Mar 26, 2024

This is cool

It could be scripted to find the built in WinRE in any system automatically

Nice work.

SIW2 · Mar 26, 2024

BobOmb said:
This is cool

It could be scripted to find the built in WinRE in any system automatically

Nice work.

I already did that with my win7 custom pebuilder

It is better if the wim is on a hard disk or ssd. It takes longer to adjust if it is on a usb stick

for example copy the aomei backupper \sources\boot.wim onto a disk first, browse to it to do the adjustment, then copy it back to \sources folder on usb stick

the pemenu.wcs can be changed so there is extra button pointing at %programfiles%\AomeiBackupper\Backupper.exe or whatever the path is

macrium fans can do similar with button pointing at %programfiles%\macrium\reflect.exe

SIW2 · Mar 26, 2024

If you are using the aomei backupper or macrium boot.wim , replace the original pemenu.wcs with this one.

It is in the BIN\windows\system32 folder

It has buttons for both. Whichever is not in your pe it doesnt matter the button wont do anything if the exe is not there.

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

SIW2 said:
If you are using the aomei backupper or macrium boot.wim , replace the original pemenu.wcs with this one.

It is in the BIN\windows\system32 folder

It has buttons for both. Whichever is not in your pe it doesnt matter the button wont do anything if the exe is not there.

Thank you very much @SIW2 for sharing your valuable information and guidance, and providing me with zip folder.
Thanks

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

jimbo45 · Mar 27, 2024

SIW2 said:
You might as well learn how to install the drivers.

Load the drivers on the fly for now to get the os installed.

Then after you have installed the os, you can integrate the drivers into winre.wim using dism or dism++

******************************************************************************************************************

One way to integrate the drivers into winre.wim

While it is possible to copy winre.wim from using the recovery sequence, a simpler way is:

reagentc /disable ( that should move winre.wim to %windir%\system32\recovery\winre.wim )

remove the attributes,

attrib -S -H -R %windir%\system32\recovery\winre.wim

create an empty folder with a sensible name,

md %systemdrive%\mount

then use dism to mount winre.wim,

dism /Mount-Image /ImageFile:"%windir%\system32\recovery\winre.wim" /index:1 /MountDir:"%systemdrive%\mount"

integrate the drivers into the mounted image , ( assuming your drivers are in a folder c:\dell-rst-winpe11 )

dism /IMAGE:"%systemdrive%\mount" /ADD-DRIVER /DRIVER:"c:\dell-rst-winpe11" /RECURSE /ForceUnsigned

unmount the image committing the changes,

dism /Unmount-Image /MountDir:"%systemdrive%\mount" /commit

and finally

attrib +S +H +R %windir%\system32\recovery\winre.wim

reagentc /enable

if you want to be fancy you could clean up the image a bit before commit and optimize after saving, but it not essentail

5 minute job at most

Works perfectly.

Cheers
jimbo

markw51 · Mar 27, 2024

glasskuter said:
Depending on a users's experience level, jacking around with inserting drivers into boot media can be confusing and is totally unnecessary.
The simplest solution is to change disk mode in bios to AHCI. (it's in the clean install tutorial Step ) This forces the install process to use the default MS storage controller driver rather than IRST during the install. Your disks will automatically be recognized.

Just recently I have removed IRST from my three systems to eliminate any need of dealing with storage controller driver using a Macrium restore or a clean install. There has been no change in disk performance from doing this. Doing a clean install is a prime time to eliminate IRST.

Unfortunately, not all manufacturers give you that option. My Dell Inspiron for example, so I have to F6 the drivers on a clean install as the Bios does not allow any other disk mode.

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

Hello
1. I had Macrium iso v 8.0 6161, I mounted it and copied boot.wim to folder to which ADD-TO-WIM.zip was extracted.
2. Replaced PEmenu.wcs in ADD-TO-MENU by PEmenu.wcs in extracted zip folder named PEmenu-BACKUPPER-MACRIUM.zip
3. Run add-to-wim cmd as administrator and specified the path of boot.wim which I already copied in the folder to which ADD-TO-WIM.zip was extracted.
4. Renamed newly modified boot.wim as Macrium.wim
5. Placed Macrium.wim in Ventoy bootable usb drive and selected Macrium.wim to boot. This wim file booted and working well.
Please see the image attached herewith.
Thanks.

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

Thanks for testing.

you can get the macrium icon to show on the button by changing #0 in pemenu.wcs to the appropriate number

ITEM Button81,L168T246W155H30,MACRIUM,EXEC %programfiles%\macrium\reflect.exe,%programfiles%\macrium\reflect.exe#0

might be #51 try it out

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

Can take screenshots with Imagine

Click Imagine button on the pemenu, then Tools>capture screen

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

Hello @SIW2 ,
Many thanks for your guidance.
In Windows 11 bootable usb, created by two partitions method FAT32 and NTFS, "add to wim" modifies boot.wim in sources folder in FAT32 partition.
Great uses of this tool. Now to continue Setup in NTFS partition , I click on CMD , then type diskpart>list vol.
After noting drive letter of partition NTFS, I can continue installation by running Setup.exe from (say) L:\sources>setup.
Can I run setup of Windows 11 by mouse click on one of options in menu PEMENU(C)SIW2 2024 ,
please guide.

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

SIW2 said:
Thanks for testing.

you can get the macrium icon to show on the button by changing #0 in pemenu.wcs to the appropriate number

ITEM Button81,L168T246W155H30,MACRIUM,EXEC %programfiles%\macrium\reflect.exe,%programfiles%\macrium\reflect.exe#0

might be #51 try it out

MACRIUM and BACKUPPER icons are available on menu, as seen in image attached herewith, in post #30, please have a look..
Icon means symbol/logo?

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

Icons

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

I can continue installation by running Setup.exe from (say) L:\sources>setup.
Can I run setup of Windows 11 by mouse click on one of options in menu PEMENU

How do you know it will always be on L

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

SIW2 said:
How do you know it will always be on L

I have to note by running diskpart>list vol.
Not L: always. Can we continue from menu.?
Where can I get more details about BCDBOOTDISK?

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

In Windows 11 bootable usb, created by two partitions method FAT32 and NTFS, "add to wim" modifies boot.wim in sources folder in FAT32 partition.

There could be a button which searches, but it might find more than one setup.exe.

Put a tag file with a unique name on the usb ntfs partition.

For example if you create an empty text file on the root of the ntfs partition called feefifo.txt

Then clicking the button can search root of all partitions for feefifo.txt and from that can get the drive letter

Ramesh Sharma · Mar 27, 2024

feefifo.txt , a blank file?

SIW2 · Mar 27, 2024

yes

you can then run this little batch file so you get the idea how it works

Find-letter-from-tagfile.bat

Code:

@echo off
for %%i in (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) do (
    if exist "%%i:\feefifo.txt" set myusbletter=%%i
     )
  
     echo %myusbletter%
  
     pause