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With a WinPE CD I always get the prompt "Press any key to boot to CD/DVD". How can I create a CD that automatically boots to CD without the prompt?

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3 Answers 3

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That behaviour you see is specific to a PE disc running any form of Windows PE. More specifically, it happens if there is a boot sector detected on the hard drive.

An easy way to demonstrate this is to clear any partitions from the hard drive and put in your PE disc - it will boot immediately without prompting.

As for answering your question, I don't believe it is possible.

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    Whilst correct, that doesn't really answer his question... "clear all bootsectors on other drives" is not really feasible, obviously... Jan 3, 2011 at 21:58
  • I don't know about PE, but with nlite I can have the custom XP install cd skip the prompt, so it might be possible with PE somehow.
    – Moab
    Jan 3, 2011 at 22:30
  • @Moab, if it is possible, I'd be interested. One of the bugbears I have with PE is that prompt if I'm busy with something else and forget to press a button within that five second gap.
    – user3463
    Jan 4, 2011 at 0:04
  • Somehow Nlite does it if you choose the option in the unattended installer section, so it must be in the text file windows uses for an unattended install. Not sure if it could be done for PE since it does not install from CD.
    – Moab
    Jan 4, 2011 at 0:26
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    If there is a bootfix.bin file in the iso, try removing it.
    – Moab
    Jan 4, 2011 at 0:29
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Moab's answer is correct. Create the WinPE ISO as you usually would, then mount it and remove the bootfix.bin from the Boot directory. After that, burn it to a cd and you can boot without the prompt.

See here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff794558(v=winembedded.60).aspx

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    – slm
    Apr 11, 2013 at 12:02
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WinPE itself contains one "bootfix.bin". When converting WinPE to ISO, that ISO will be having one more "bootfix.bin".

I think when booting through WIMBOOT it will use bootfix.bin inside *.wim file. And when booting through ISO it will use bootfix.bin under "media/boot/bootfix.bin"(this is for 32bit).

I am able to boot without the "press any key prompt" after removing the "bootfix.bin" from WIM file and also from ISO file.

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