PEBuilder offers a very handy plug-in system that allows us to augment the limited functionality of our rescue CD by integrating a variety of applications into the image. The plug-ins exist both for commercial and non-commercial software products and can be downloaded from the internet preconfigured for many applications. A good place to begin searching for plug-ins would be directly on the PEBuilder website. You can find a survey of existing plug-ins along with download links at BootCD.us and in the forums at www.911cd.net.

There are two kinds of BartPE plug-ins, namely packaged as Zip-archives or as a Windows Cabinet file. CAB files can easily be integrated into BartPE through the PEBuilder interface. Zip-archives have to be unpacked into a subdirectory of the PEBuilder\Plugins folder.

To create a Rescue CD with the Windows XP user interface, we need the Windows XPE Plug-in. To ensure that the XPE Plug-in is fully functional, we also need the AutoRamDiskResizer, HWPnP and nu2xpe Menu Converter plug-ins as well as the support of the Build Scripts. After downloading them, save AutoRamDiskResizer and HWPnP in the folder Rescue-System\Plugins and the Build Scripts to Rescue-System\Tools. If, like us, you’re using Windows Vista, you will also need the program InfCacheBuild in version 2.0.0 as well as the file setupapi.dll which you can find in the directory CP-Source\I386. Without this file, you’ll get a faulty BartPE image under Windows Vista. This does not apply if you’re using Windows XP.

Next up is a little manual work. Open the application PEBuilder.exe in the PEBuilder directory and click on the “Plugins” button in the program window to open PEBuilder’s plug-in management. Click on “Add” in this window, select the file xpe-1.0.7.cab in the directory Rescue-Disk\Plugins and confirm the next dialog box with OK. Repeat these steps with the files hwpnp1022.cab, autoramresizer-2.1.cab, and nu2xpe-1.5.cab. Next, rename the file "z_xpe-custom.inf.sample" to z_xpe-custom.inf in the directory Rescue-Disk\PEBuilder\plugin\xpe-1.0.7. After clicking “Refresh” in the plug-in management window, you’ll find 12 entries that all begin with “[Sherpya]”. Deactivate the entries “Nu2Shell” and “Startup Group” and leave this window by clicking “Close”.