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I'm starting work on a project that must be delivered in WinPE. I will likely be able to use WinPE 3.0. I'm also aware of Bart's PE and VistaPE, but I think I'm going to stick with WinPE. I need x64 support and the full range of storage drivers.

I want to develop an app with a GUI and network access. I would like to work in Visual Studio to design my GUI, although that's not a requirement.

What programming languages will I be able to use to target WinPE, with GUI support? With a little bit of research I've discovered that .NET simply isn't supported (by Microsoft), so that seems to exclude all C#, modern VB, etc. Has anyone run Java/Swing? C++ with MFC or ATL (modern)? Hacked in .NET to get CLR support?

I can run Perl with Win32::GUI. But it does not allow me to use Visual Studio with the Resource View to create the GUI I want. It must all be done programmatically. Or is that possible?

Bill the Lizard
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Jared Oberhaus
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  • WinPE 4 now supports .NET 4.0 Client Framework. – MDMoore313 Mar 06 '13 at 14:57
  • I wish I had seen [this](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/589387/developing-lightweight-no-runtime-windows-based-gui-applications-using-free-too/589436) related StackOverflow question. – Jared Oberhaus Mar 25 '09 at 17:25

3 Answers3

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You can use .NET now, starting with WinPE 4.0 http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/41/Windows-8-Preview-Howto-Creating-a-WinPE-boot-image-with-NET-Framework-and-PowerShell.aspx

MDMoore313
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Try Realbasic, the program will compile its own local dll. I've used it to create a front loader for PE via PXE. Realbasic is cross-platform windows/mac/linux. You will want the professional version, but it's been worth the cost at my company.

scott
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You can use Mono and C#, but it makes WinPE MUCH larger. I'm told you can use mkbundle to keep it more reasonable.

I personally use Borland Delphi (v7 and prior, not sure if turbo works or not).

Stephen Lee Parker
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