Projects that build upon WindowsPE have existed since Win2k, several of those can be found on github, some updated over the years to use newer base images. But

Projects that build upon WindowsPE have existed since Win2k, several of those can be found on github, some updated over the years to use newer base images. But I always wondered about the legality of using that approach to create a windows Image you could boot of a USB stick, or even a Boot-image server over network. Afaik, WinPE is the engine under the installation system in older version, and can only be legally used in workflows peripheral to System installation/debug/repair. Windows Embedded seems to be the MS-preferred approach these days if you need a custom-purpose Windows installation. How to get/use Windows Embedded legally without an Enterprise agreement has be on my "look-into-it-some-day"-list, but since I don't have/use Windows-only tools in my daily workflows, the urgency has been somewhat steadily decreasing.