WinSetupShell (Win11PE)

WinSetupShell is a simple desktop shell (desktop, start menu, quick launch toolbar, taskbar, system tray) for Windows PE x64 written in pure Python (no third-party modules) that can be used to enhance a regular Windows 11 (or Windows 10 22H2) setup USB drive with a live USB system that can optionally be used for system repair tasks etc., using a comfortable desktop GUI instead of only hacking commands into a CMD prompt. It provides network support and a web browser (Pale Moon), so you can search for documentation or download stuff right from the live USB system, no other PC needed.

WinSetupShell uses the original unaltered Windows PE that comes with the Windows setup, there is no "baking" involved. Windows PE is a reduced Windows OS that provides the basic WinAPI, but no Explorer file manager, and no Explorer-based desktop, therefor such a custom shell/desktop is needed. As file manager a customized version of Explorer++ is used.

The original Windows setup stuff isn't altered in any way, so the USB drive remains a perfectly valid Windows setup media.

WinSetupShell is a simple and easily installed alternative for applications like WinBuilder, Win10XPE, PEBakery etc., which are a) too complicate for me and b) don't use the original Windows setup PE, but instead create a custom OS based on PE.

As far as I know WinSetupShell is the only alternative shell for Windows that was ever written in Python. But, why not?

WinSetupShell desktop, loaded from enhanced Win11 25H2 USB setup media

Requirements

• Rufus (or some similar tool)
• USB drive (10 GB or larger)

Setup

• Use Rufus to download and install a Windows 11 setup .iso of the flavor and language of your choice (I used Win11_25H2_German_x64.iso) on the USB drive, turning it into a regular Windows 11 setup media. Or let Rufus use a local .iso file that you downloaded before.
• Download the lastest WinSetupShell release .7z, unpack it and copy its contents (shell.exe and the 2 folders shell_data and programs) to the root directory of the USB drive.
• Done.

Windows 11 setup USB drive created with Rufus, with the 3 additional WinSetupShell items copied to it

Alternative Setup (Ventoy)

WinSetupShell can also be used with a multi-boot USB drive created with Ventoy. In this case just copy shell.exe and the 2 folders shell_data and programs on the Ventoy volume, next to your (Windows setup) .iso files.

Important: use NTFS as filesystem for the Ventoy drive. Ventoy defaults to exFAT, but exFAT doesn't support the methods that WinSetupShell uses for monitoring filesystem changes (of the desktop folder).

Ventoy USB drive with 4 Windows Setup .iso files and the 3 WinSetupShell items

Usage

• Boot from the enhanced Windows 11 setup USB drive. If you want to install Windows on the local PC, continue as usual. But if you instead want to (first) start the live system, see below.

• When you see the Windows 11 Setup window, press Shift+F10 to open a CMD prompt.

• Enter D:\shell to start the shell. [*]

• You can quit the shell by right-clicking on the start menu button and selecting "Exit" from the popup menu, you will then return to the naked Windows 11 setup window and can continue the Windows setup (if it's not visible, use Alt+Tab to bring it to the front). Or select "Reboot" or "Shutdown" in the start menu to reboot resp. shut down the PC.

[*] "D" is a placeholder for the actual drive letter of your USB drive (NOT the drive letter of the booted system, loaded from boot.wim, which AFAIK is always "X"). It will be the first letter, starting at "C", that is not used by existing volumes on your PC. If there are no (valid) volumes with drive letters, it will be "C", in my case it's "D". You can enter echo list vol | diskpart to see a list of all existing volumes and their letters.

Hotkeys

• Win: Toggle start menu
• Win + Alt + Del: Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn't work in PE and AFAIK can't be overwritten)
• Win + D: Show desktop (toggle visible application windows)
• Win + E: Open new Explorer++ instance/window
• Win + R: Open "Run" dialog
• Win + S: Open Search (defaults to SwiftSearch)
• Ctrl + Tab: Opens a simple graphical window switcher (Alt + Tab in PE just switches to next window and AFAIK can't be overwritten)

Network

Network isn't started by default, so before you can use e.g. Pale Moon or FileZilla, you first have to initialize it, either by clicking on the network icon in the system tray or selecting Network -> Initialize Network from the start menu. If you are connected via Ethernet cable and DHCP is available, nothing else is needed, you should now be online.

If you want to start network by default, add line
wpeutil.exe InitializeNetwork /NoWait
to the end of file
shell_data\userprofile\AppData\autoexec.bat.

System Tray

There is no real System Tray (since there is no Explorer in PE), i.e. not custom app tray icons, no "Minimze to Tray" and no tray notifications. The provided System Tray is just a toolbar with the following 4 icons:

• Network: Click initializes network if it's not initialized yet. If PC is connected, tooltip shows the current (local) IPv4 address.

• USB Disk Ejector: Allows to safely eject USB drives.

• Keyboard Layout: Shows a popup menu that allows to switch the current keyboard layout/language. After changing the keyboard layout runnning applications have to be restarted to use the new layout.

• Battery status (if there is a battery): Tooltip shows the battery charge level in % and the estimated remaining time (if the PC is not plugged in).

If the shell is run inside regular Windows 11 instead of Windows PE, there are 3 more icons:

• Volume (if sound is available): Click opens a slider that allows to adjust the master volume.

• Brightness: Click opens a slider that allows to adjust the screen brightness.

• Sleep: Click toggles if sleep mode (stand by) of the PC is allowed or prevented.

Clock

The clock in the lower right corner shows the current time without seconds, its tooltip shows the current date. Clicking on the clock opens a small pane that displays the current time with seconds as well as the current date and a browsable calendar.

Included applications (Freeware/Shareware/Trialware)

• 7-Zip
• AgentRansack
• AOMEI Partition Assistant
• BootIce
• Check Disk GUI
• Classic Calulator
• CPU-Z
• Crystal Disk Info
• Defraggler
• Disk2vhd
• DiskGenius
• Dism++
• DMDE
• Drive Snapshot
• Drive Letter Changer
• EasyUEFI (Trial version)
• Explorer++
• Fido (PowerShell script for downloading Windows ISOs from microsoft.com)
• FidoArch (Fido clone for downloading Windows ISOs from archive.org)
• FileZilla
• GSmartControl
• Hasleo Backup Suite
• HWiNFO
• HxD
• IrfanView
• Macrium Reflect + Macrium ReDeploy (Trial version)
• MiniTool Partition Wizard
• NirSoft (suite)
• Notepad++
• NTPWedit
• Pale Moon
• PENetwork
• PortableGit (Git Bash, Git CMD)
• PowerISO
• PowerShell 7
• PuTTY
• Python 3.12.10
• Recuva
• Rufus
• Speccy
• SumatraPDF
• SwiftSearch
• Sysinternals Suite
• TestDisk & PhotoRec
• Total Commander (with plugin DiskInternals Reader, which allows to explore Linux and Mac partitions and disk images)
• UltraSearch
• VeraCrypt (True