Windows Embedded Standard 7 is componentized version of Windows 7, where you pick what components you want and you get a custom Windows 7 installation…
With Windows Embedded Standard 7 you can automate the Image Builder Wizard (IBW) with an answer file. Here is a fully unattended sample that will deploy a minimal Windows Embedded Standard 7 Image with the explorer shell. The resulting image file is only 175 MB, which is pretty good for a Windows 7 OS …
The answer file can be further modified using Image Configuration Editor (ICE), which is the Windows Embedded version of Windows System Image Manager (WSIM).
The only “non-standard” tweak I did was adding the HideEvaluationWarning value so that the process doesn’t stop and prompt you if you are testing with a trial version. The password for the Kiosk user is P@ssw0rd. You also need to update the product key placeholder with your own runtime key.
/ Johan