Adding Mustang's Acronis Scripts to Your VistaPE CD

IMPORTANT NOTE: As of January 13th, 2009, Mustang has discontinued all sales of his VistaPE scripts and will not be giving anyone permission to distribute them.

This guide will remain as a general guide for VistaPE as well as for those who have already purchased Mustang's scripts.

MustangPEBuilder for Acronis True Image 2009 is still currently available.

This guide assumes you have already successfully created a VistaPE CD using the Beginner's Guide to Creating a VistaPE CD and now want to install one or more of Mustang's Acronis WinBuilder-VistaPE scripts in your build.

Mustang's Acronis scripts support more program features than the standard BartPE plugins provided by Acronis in addition to allowing you to run the programs from your VistaPE CD.

Mustang's WinBuilder-VistaPE scripts for Acronis programs are available from his website: http://www.mechrest.com/plugins/index.html

The Acronis programs you want to include in your build must be installed on your computer in order for the Mustang's scripts to work.

For example: If you want to include True Image 11 on your VistaPE CD, True Image 11 needs to be installed on the computer on which you'll be running WinBuilder. This is so the script can copy the necessary files during the build process. Once the VistaPE CD is created, True Image 11 will be available when booted to the VistaPE CD even if True Image 11 is not currently installed on the computer.

Currently (as of 06-19-2008), Mustang's Acronis scripts require WinBuilder 074 and VistaPE 11 to work correctly.

The example shown below will be using the True Image Home 11 script.

Once you have have purchased the script and saved it to a folder on your computer, extract the contents into another folder.

1.1

See: Using Windows to Extract the Contents of a ZIP File

Here, the files have been extracted into the xTrueImageH11 sub-folder of my Downloads folder.

Copy the extracted xTrueImageH11 folder into the Projects\VistaPE\App sub-folder of your WinBuilder folder.

1.2

If WinBuilder is running, click the Refresh button. Otherwise, start WinBuilder. Browse to the VistaPE >> App >> xTrueImageH11 folder. Expand the folder and click on the Acronis True Image Home 11.0 script to select it.

1.3

The options and settings for the script will be displayed on the right side of the window. The Script tab should be selected (click it if it's not).

If your Windows partition is assigned the C: drive letter and you have installed True Image to its default location, no changes are necessary. If your installation is not default, make the necessary changes.

If you select the Run from ram (boot wim) option, make sure to uncheck the Mount folder with programs as drive Y: option in the Extended Configuration script (shown in figure 3.3). This will avoid an issue on some computers that causes VistaPE to not boot correctly when these scripts are used.

1.4

The next step is to copy your program's Serial Number from the Registry and paste the value into the appropriate box. The Registry key and value needed are shown in the script.

1.5

Open the Registry Editor and browse to the specified key (in this example, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Acronis\TrueImage).

Copy the data of the value (standard, in this example) by following the instructions in the script.

The Serial Number will be a long string of spaces and number groups.

See: Using the Windows Registry Editor

1.6

Click into the Serial Number box and press Ctrl-V to paste the copied Serial Number value into the box. Then click the Save button.

Due to an apparent bug in WinBuilder, you must click into the Serial Number box and press Ctrl-V to paste the value. Then press the Save button. If you use the mouse to right-click on the box and then paste from the pop-up menu, the value will be displayed in the box, but WinBuilder will not save or use it.

To verify that the Serial Number value has been correctly saved by WinBuilder, you can click on another script (Main Configuration, for example) and then click back on your Acronis script. If the value is displayed correctly in the Serial Number box, it has been saved correctly.

1.7

If you still have problems getting WinBuilder to save the pasted in Serial Number, instructions on using Notepad to paste the Serial Number directly into the script file can be found here.

If you have multiple Acronis programs you want to include, repeat this procedure for each one.

Finally, click the Play button to recreate your VistaPE build and include your Acronis program(s).

Burn the new VistaPE ISO file to a CD and boot it. Your Acronis program should show up in the menu as well as having a desktop icon.

1.8

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