how to use cctk in preboot environment

You can use CCTK with the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) to configure your hardware before installing the OS.

Thank you Warren. I created a WinPE boot UFD. I added the settings.exe file that I need ( the one that sets the bios settings) to a folder placed inside the WinPEx86\ISO folder before copying the folder to the flash drive. I can boot the workstation to WinPE which gives me a X:> prompt, but cannot find a drive letter for the flash drive to access and run the settings.exe. Am I using Win PE correctly?

Check out this guide from Niall Brady.  He shows you how you can use CCTK during WinPE but without actually having to copy the CCTK binaries into your Boot.wim.  That way, when a new version of CCTK comes out, you can simply swap out the package it references!

www.windows-noob.com/.../index.php

If you install CCTK on a system and browse to where it gets installed (C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\CCTK) you'll find the batch files you need.

If you look in the X86 or X86_64 folders underneath the above directory you'll find 3 batch files that will install CCTK to a WinPE boot image offline using DISM.  Use the appropriate install files based on the architecture of your WinPE.wim.  (X86_64 is for x64)

Hi Dustin.

I read the article, but it seems to be using SCCM. It's just telling SCCM to laod CCTK to get access to the TPM to enable bit locker during SCCM deployment. I am not uisng any kind of image deployment at this step. In fact, my goal is to bypass the running OS altogether and run an exe file from a bootable cd or usb. It does have the following information:

...what if you want to enable the TPM in WinPE ? to do that you've got the option of using batch files provided in the CCTK, these batch files require the Windows AIK installed and they create an ISO and new boot WIM for you to import into SCCM.

which indicates that there is a way to access the BIOS settings from WinPE, but I cannot find any information about any CCTK batch files.

I was able to find the batch files (thank you). executing cctk_x86_winpe did nothing, so I opened a command window, went to the same location and ran it which prompted told me to add 2 variables. I did this, but the second variable (program files (x86)) did not work so I copied the cctk folder to the root level. This left me with a command of 'cctk_x86_WinPE c:\winpex86 c:\cctk' which executed all of the steps in the bat file (but with an error saying that PETools\peimg failed). When the script was finished unmounting, I copied the c:\winpex86\iso folder to a flash drive (freshly reformatted) and booted the workstation from it. I am back to the x:\ prompt that I had before and do not see how to execeute the settings.exe file. Was adding cctk into the wim supposed to provide support for navigating to the flash drive? or should I be able to run cctk now somehow and then execeute the settings file from there?

FYI - I also tried writing the settings.exe file to a cd, but booting from WinPE would not access the cd drive saying the disk structure was unreadable

The batch files should inject the cctk.exe executable and necessary binaries into your WinPE.wim file.  It should also install the HAPI drivers which are necessary.  The CCTK files have nothing to do with your ability to read drives though, that's all based on storage/chipset drivers which may, or may not be needed depending on the version of WinPE you are using and the model of system you are executing it on.

Once you have the WinPE.wim file mounted, you should be able to copy your settings.exe file into the mount directory.  After committing your changes to the WIM file, you should be able to boot into it and find it in X:\ (whatever directory you saved it to).

Hi Stewie,

Let me clarify few things.

1. It is not possible to run the SCE in Windows PE environment
2. As you are aware, sample scripts have been provided that will create CCTK CLI injected WinPE image; they can be found in folders
   1. C:\Program Files\Dell\CCTK\X86 &
   2. C:\Program Files\Dell\CCTK\X86_64
3. Instructions to use the sample script to generate ‘CCTK CLI injected WinPE’ are available in CCTK guide, (http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/04/Product/dell-clnt-config-toolkit-v2.2) page 11.
4. Documentation for CCTK is available at http://www.dell.com/support/Manuals/us/en/04/Product/dell-clnt-config-toolkit-v2.2

Please let us know if you need any more help.

Shrinidhi -

by SCE were you referring to the exe that I had originally created? I saw on page 20 of the user guide how to create an ini file instead, should I be using that?

Good morning. I followed the above advice and

1. mounted the wim file

2. copied the configuration file (Optiplex 9010.exe) to the root folder

3. committed the changes

4. reformatted a flash drive

5. copied the wim file to the iso folder

6. copied the iso folder to thte flash drive

now when I boot the workstation from the flash drive I get an x:\ prompt. "dir" will show me the directory listing including the Optiplex 9010.exe file that I need to run, but "Optiplex 9010.exe" gives me the following error:

The instruction at 0x00d944bc referenced memory at 0x00000000. The memory could not be read.

All-

I tried the same procedure with an ini file on the flash drive. I can browse to it but running "cctk -i 9010.ini" gave an error of "cctk is not recognized as an internal or external command"

Hi Stewie,

The SCE or the executable generated by CCTK cannot be run on Windows PE.

Please use the ini file only.

Windows would give mentioned error when path to given application cannot be located.

So please run CCTK from original path itself.

Hello Shrindhi. That was 3 weeks ago now, and I really don't remember the exact steps. I know that I followed the guidance in the user manual about creating an .ini file. I *believe* that I then mounted the .wim image for windows PE, copied the .ini file into the file structure, committed the changes, then copied the .wim to a bootable flash drive and booted from it. I then browsed to where I copied the .ini file (at the x:\ prompt) and tried to run it using the command shown in the user manual.