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➕ Customise Strelec

Add Your Own Portable Programs to Sergei Strelec WinPE

The Strelec toolkit is huge, but every technician has two or three favourite utilities it does not include. Here is how to carry your own portable programs on the same stick — in the right folder, launched the right way, and still there after the next build update.

✍️ Technical Anshu🧰 Sergei Strelec WinPE⏱️ 6 minute read
🎥 Full video — customising the Strelec stick with your own tools, shown live

A rescue stick gets personal over time — your favourite uninstaller, a tiny screenshot tool, the vendor utility for the machines you service most. Strelec is built to accept your additions, as long as two rules are respected: the program must be portable (no installation, no services, no drivers of its own), and it must live in your area of the SSTR folder, not inside the toolkit's own program folders.

This PC — Placing a Portable Tool in the USER Area
USB (E:) \ SSTR \ USERYour space
📁 MyTools \ HWMonitor_portablePortable = OK
📁 MyTools \ OfficeSetup.exe installerInstaller = will fail
📁 MyTools \ DriverBooster (installs services)Not PE-safe
The test is simple — if the program runs from a folder on a normal PC without installing, it will run in Strelec (example view).
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Rule One — Portable Only, and Test It First

WinPE has no installer service waiting for your setup files and no patience for programs that demand .NET components, licensing services or their own kernel drivers. Before a tool earns a place on the stick, run this test on a normal PC:

  1. Copy the program's folder to a USB stick on a normal Windows PC
  2. Run it from the stick — if it works fully without installing anything, it is genuinely portable
  3. Check it does not need to be activated online or tied to that machine

Classic portable builds of file managers, hardware monitors, text editors, PDF readers and small network tools pass this test easily.

2

Rule Two — Place It in the USER Area of SSTR

  1. On the Strelec stick, open SSTR\USER
  2. Create a clearly named folder such as MyTools and copy each portable program into its own subfolder
  3. Keep the folder names short and free of spaces where you can — batch files and menus handle simple names best

Keeping your tools under USER matters for one practical reason: this is the folder you back up before an update, so your whole personal toolkit is one copy-paste away from surviving a rebuild.

3

Launching Your Tools Inside WinPE

Your programs will not appear in the Strelec Start menu automatically, and that is fine — there are three reliable ways to run them:

  1. File Explorer: open This PC, browse to the stick, SSTR\USER\MyTools, and double-click the program
  2. Desktop shortcut habit: right-click the program and pin a shortcut where you can reach it during the session
  3. MInstAll registration: advanced users can register programs into the MInst program manager so they appear in its catalogue — powerful, but back up the MInst data first; a malformed entry can break the manager's list

For tools you launch on every single job, a small batch file in the SSTR bat folder can start them at boot — edit those startup files carefully and keep the originals.

4

What Will Not Work — Stated Honestly

Some categories simply cannot live in WinPE: full office suites, programs that install a Windows service or driver, tools that must write to a real user profile, and anything that activates against machine hardware it cannot find in a PE session. If a favourite tool fails in Strelec, the fix is not a trick — use the portable edition if the author publishes one, or keep that one job for a booted Windows with a normal portable-apps stick.

🔴 Licence honesty: portable does not mean free. Commercial tools on your rescue stick still need their licences — a customer's audit will not accept it was only on a USB as a defence.

🎥 Watch the Complete Video Guide

Every step shown live on a real PC — download, USB creation and the full Strelec toolkit tour.

▶️ Watch Full Video
❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Will my added programs survive a Strelec update?

If they live in SSTR\USER, mostly yes — the standard update habit is to back up the USER folder, replace the build, and confirm your folder is back in place. Programs merged into the toolkit's own folders get overwritten, which is exactly why the USER area exists.

Can I make my program start automatically when Strelec boots?

Yes. Strelec runs the command and batch files kept in the SSTR bat folder at startup, so a small batch file that launches your tool works. Keep a copy of the original bat files before editing — a bad startup line affects every boot.

Why does my program open on a normal PC but crash in WinPE?

Usually a missing runtime or component: WinPE is a minimal Windows, so programs needing full .NET, specific Visual C++ runtimes or Windows services can fail. The author's portable edition, or an older lighter version of the same tool, is the practical answer.

This guide is based on the Technical Anshu video on Sergei Strelec WinPE • Stuck on any step? Ask in the video comments — you will get a reply there 🙏