WinBuilder is a free application designed to build and customize boot disks (

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading fro ...

s) based on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

(

WinPE Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

Scripts

Scripts are the building blocks of Live CD compiled with Winbuilder, and are used to build the core components of the Live CD for adding applications, and for configuration of a specific project. Scripts consist of a human-readable text file with the extension, and can contain Winbuilder scripting commands, the scripts graphical user interface, and sometimes encoded applications to be extracted when needed.

Projects

A Project is a collection of Winbuilder scripts maintained for building a complete Live CD. Each project contains multiple scripts, each responsible for adding features or applications to the build. Users may build their own projects from scratch or use one of many projects actively developed by the boot-land community. Projects can be downloaded directly using Winbuilder's built-in download manager and used as-is or further customized to meet the individual's needs.

Actively developed projects

Gena
- The Gena project provides a basis for building a PE environment using

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

sources and is the successor to LiveXP
nativeEx_multiPE
- Live CD/DVD /

Live USB A live USB is a portable USB-attached external data storage device containing a full operating system that can be booted from. The term is reminiscent of USB flash drives but may encompass an external hard disk drive or solid-state drive, thou ...

that can be built from either Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 x86 sources.
Win7PE SE
- The Win7PE SE project provides a basis for building a PE environment using

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

sources. A fork of Multi 7PEs.
Win8PE SE
- The Win8PE SE project provides a basis for building a PE environment using a

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for downl ...

source and supports both x86 and x64 architectures.
Win8.1PE SE
- The Win8.1PE SE project provides a basis for building a PE environment using a

Windows 8.1 Windows 8.1 is a release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 27, 2013, and broadly released for retail sale on October 17, 2013, about a year after the retail release of its pre ...

source and supports both x86 and x64 architectures.
Win10PE SE
- Live CD/DVD that can be built from

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

sources and supports both x86 and x64 architectures.

Inactive Projects

BartPEcore
- running bartPE inside a Winbuilder environment
BB-7PE
- A

based Rescue focused PE using bbLean as its shell.
LiveXP
- Based on nativeEx, contains a large archive of programs targeted for computer repair and administration
Multi 7PEs
(formally Win7PE) - Live CD/DVD that can be built from either

sources
MultiPE Leopard
- Live CD/DVD that can be built from either

sources.
NativeEx
- Small sized Windows XP PE boot disk (~50Mb)
NaughtyPE
- Windows XP PE boot disk with sound support and other multimedia features.
PicoXP
- Minimalistic 14 MB boot disk based on XP
UXP
- Based On

for making a multiboot CD/DVD which includes The LiveXP and WinRoot (also for customization of the CD/DVD there are other apps used such as Nlite, etc.)
VistaPE
- Based on Windows PE 2.0 (included on

DVD and WAIK)
VistaPE CAPI
- Based o
VistaPE
VistaPE CAPI provides bugfixes and enhancements to the original project and support for newer Winbuilder versions.
Win7RescuePE
- Live CD/DVD based on

All of these projects are developed and distributed freely and aim to provide an alternative to other popular

distributions based on Linux such as Knoppix,

Slax Slax is a LiveCD Linux distribution developed by Tomáš Matějíček and based on upstream customizable Linux distributions. Packages can be added by apt package manager or can be prepared as modules. The tagline for Slax refers to itself as " ...

Damn Small Linux Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a discontinued computer operating system for the x86 family of personal computers. It is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL and other free and open source licenses. It was designed to run graph ...

, which are known for their use in rescue or administrative actions on PCs.

Use and reception

Use of the software to build various customized boot disks has been covered in articles from PC Quest,

PC-Welt ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tec ...

(the German edition of

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

, which also offers some customized scripts for building disk images including additional utilities, branded as pcwVistaPE and pcwWin7PE), the Russian edition of

CHIP Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) is a type of immunoprecipitation experimental technique used to investigate the interaction between proteins and DNA in the cell. It aims to determine whether specific proteins are associated with specific genom ...

, and by TeraByte Unlimited.

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

editor's review found that "WinBuilder is one of the most easy-to-use boot disk creation tools in the genre," and praised it for its "novice-friendly interface", but at the same time warned that the "program expects experienced users. For the most part, boot disk applications are for experts only." The built-in Download Center was remarked because it "simplifies procuring the boot disk applications." Other features praised were "its small size, fair memory overhead, simple instructions, and robust application installation wizards."CNET Staff, (December 25, 2007)
WinBuilder 074 CNET editors' review
',

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://winbuilder.net
Official forum

Winbuilder Documentation

Additional documentation by Paraglider

Paper explaining in detail the scripting framework of WinBuilder
Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Windows administration