Have been working with Windows PE 3.0 to create an automated bootable USB and CD that boots a machine, partitions the disk, applies an image and copies some files to create a ThinStation thin client.
Whenever we booted our target machines, we got the following error:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - 0x0000000A
Windows PE 3.0 has a minimum requirement of 256mb of useable RAM. The machines that we were using had 256mb of RAM total, and were using Shared Memory for the Graphics card – reducing the actual available RAM to 224mb, causing the boot to fail.
The limitations of Windows PE are listed through the link below. This link takes you to the details for Windows PE 2.0, but as far as I can find the limitations and the requirements are the same.
Yer, download the server edition livecd, extract to pen (7zip), run the batch file, create and image, start the server. Pretty much wizard-e. We normally have it set to x no of clients.
Have you looked at Clonezilla?
I thought about it. Was trying to keep some consistency with installs as we already use winpe to install Windows 7 on netbooks. Is it easy to use?