[syslinux] Most efficient way of pxe booting windows pe

Lindgren Daniel daniel.lindgren at tullverket.se
Tue Mar 29 06:50:07 PDT 2011


> We are using syslinux (memdisk) and gpxe already for a while.
> Also got a working winpe boot method by means of pxe. Which 
> basicly is a dd of an 'recovery partition' where winpe.wim is on.
> That method isn't really the most efficient way, cause its 
> loaded into memory twice. 
> 
> We are going to do a major windows 7 deployment soon and i'm 
> looking for the most efficient way of booting a small winpe.
> Can anyone tell me the options and what is the best and most 
> efficient method of today into booting a winpe.wim?

We're using PXELINUX with memdisk to boot a WinPE ISO (RAM disk,
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799303(WS.10).aspx),
transferred by HTTP using gpxe. Takes about 15 seconds to transfer on a
LAN.

Our 64-bit ISO image is ~172 MB, even when loaded twice we're only
talking about ~350 MB RAM. Our Windows 7 machines have 2048-4096 MB RAM,
can't see the problem.

Cheers,
Daniel





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