[ece]

Windows PE/To Go has been a thing for a while now, it's a shame you can only make bootable Windows USB disks using the enterprise editions. Though Macrium Reflect (and possibly others) will let you make a USB "recovery disk" that might run the firmware update programs you'd like to run.

edit: Windows PE won't do .msi, but .exe should work: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...

[codetrotter]

> it's a shame you can only make bootable Windows USB disks using the enterprise editions

I remember in the Windows XP era, there was a third-party piece of software called BartPE.

With BartPE you could create a preinstalled environment with WinXP Home even.

Here is a page someone wrote with some details about BartPE: http://www.optimizingpc.com/miscellaneous/manual_bartpe.html

Wikipedia:

> As with Windows Preinstallation Environment, BartPE operates by loading system registry files into RAM, and not writing any registry changes back to boot media. Thus, neither operating system requires an operational hard drive or network access. This also allows them to be run from non-writable media such as a CD-ROM.

> […]. The Bart PE Builder application interprets and condenses files from a Windows setup CD to create the BartPE installation. It can built from a Windows XP Pro or Home Edition CD, or from a preinstalled Windows XP version (without a CD).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BartPE

[ece]

Yeah, I remember this, seems like Microsoft copied a good idea.

[codetrotter]

BartPE was inspired by what Microsoft had already done.

From the http://www.optimizingpc.com/miscellaneous/manual_bartpe.html page linked above:

> WinPE (Microsoft's tool Windows Preinstallation Environment) is used by system builders to install and configure the Windows operating system on new computers. WinPE is commercial software and only available for system builders. Bart Lagerweij saw the advantages of this tool and decided to develop his own PE, named BartPE.

[ece]

I didn't know WinPE was that old. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/...

[gsich]

I think WAIK also runs on other editions. But it's not a nice click UI.