WinSetupShell ("Win11PE")

[59de44955ebd]

Hi guys,

I'm interested about what you think about this project that can found under the name "WinSetupShell" on github.

The idea is the following: instead of creating/baking fancy custom PE-based .isos, what about only using the original Windows PE that comes with Windows 11 setup media, and "enhance" the Windows 11 setup media with a (optional) very simple live-usb desktop that can be used for system repair tasks etc., but only if needed. So the same USB flash drive can be used for both regularly installing Windows 11 on a target machine or starting the live-usb system.

Of course this means that the live-usb desktop system has less features than a full-featured "Win10PE" .iso, and starting it requires using CMD via Shift+F10. But I guess it still might be useful.

[Homes32]

neat idea for a simple & dirty maint./recovery operations.

v.3 kept crashing, but v.5 is working for me today.

docs mention editing shell_data\app_data\start_menu.pson however it appears that shell_data\app_data\start_menu is a static cache of .lnk files, not a json config.

good luck & thanks for sharing

-Homes32

[59de44955ebd]

> docs mention editing shell_data\app_data\start_menu.pson however it appears
> that shell_data\app_data\start_menu is a static cache of .lnk files, not a
> json config.

Sorry for the inconvenience. In the meantime (v0.6) I removed this icon pre-caching completely, there are now only 3 simple (pseudo-JSON) text files in shell_data\app_data that can be edited manually, nothing else. The main difference between those ".pson" (= files directly evaluated with Python) and standard JSON files is, that .pson files can contain line comments (lines starting with "#"), which the JSON format doesn't support.