Q. How can I add a Microsoft Windows Imaging Format (WIM)-based Preinstallation Environment (PE) and Recovery Environment (RE) to my boot menu?

A. If you don't have a separate partition to deploy Windows PE and Windows RE, you can take a WIM file containing Windows PE and Windows RE and boot.sdi (which is provided for each architecture in the Windows Automated Installation Kit) and add a boot configuration database entry to allow the WIM file to load into a RAM drive.

Place the machine architecture WIM file and boot.sdi at the root of the C drive. Then, use the following commands to create a RAM disk device:

bcdedit /create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options"
The entry {ramdiskoptions} was successfully created.
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice partition=C:
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit /set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath boot.sdi
The operation completed successfully.

You can now use this RAM disk to mount a WIM file. To use the RAM disk and the WIM file, you first need to create a new OSLOADER entry, then configure the entry with the globally unique identifier (GUID).

bcdedit /create /d "Windows RE" /application OSLOADER
The entry {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c6c11635e9} was successfully created.
bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c6c11635e9} device ramdisk=[c:]winre.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} path windowssystem32winload.exe
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} osdevice ramdisk=[c:]winre.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
The operation completed successfully. bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} systemroot windows
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} winpe yes
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit /set {57f9d854-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} detecthal yes
The operation completed successfully.
bcdedit -displayorder {57f9d851-b1b2-11dc-9cfd-e2c2d840594d} -addlast
The operation completed successfully.