WinPE 10 WIM shows 0x80004005 setup error (cannot determine language)

Question

I have created a basic WinPE 10 boot.wim, which is deployed by PXE through WDS. Unfortunately, when it attempts to launch setup.exe the error:

Windows could not determine the language to use for setup. Error code: 0x80004005.

I can't get around this error!

To create the boot.wim, Windows 10 ADK was installed (on Windows 7 Ent), the WinPE.wim boot file from the ADK was mounted and the following packages were added:

• Microsoft-Windows-WinPE-LanguagePack-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~en-US~10.0.10240.16384 (Language Pack)
• Microsoft-Windows-WinPE-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Foundation)
• WinPE-LegacySetup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~en-US~10.0.10240.16384 (Language Pack)
• WinPE-LegacySetup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)
• WinPE-Scripting-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)
• WinPE-Setup-Client-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~en-US~10.0.10240.16384 (Language Pack)
• WinPE-Setup-Client-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)
• WinPE-Setup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~en-US~10.0.10240.16384 (Language Pack)
• WinPE-Setup-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)
• WinPE-WDS-Tools-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)
• WinPE-WMI-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~x86~~10.0.10240.16384 (Feature Pack)

International settings are:

• Default system UI language : en-US
• System locale : en-US
• Default time zone : Pacific Standard Time
• User locale for default user : en-US
• Location : United States (GEOID = 244)
• Active keyboard(s) : 0409:00000409
• Keyboard layered driver : PC/AT Enhanced Keyboard (101/102-Key)
• Installed language(s): en-US Type : Fully localized language.

The WDS server is a 2012 R2 box. No Unattend files for WinPE being used at this stage.

Solution

Your Boot.wim bootable image must have a lang.ini file within the \sources directory containing i.e.

[Available UI Languages]
en-US = 3

[Fallback Languages]
en-US = en-us

Comments

[MrBeatnik]

Bah, I completely forgot about this step (and forgot to document it). Had to do the same for previous PE 3+ boot images in the past. I MUST put it in the documentation this time. Thanks, kudos applied.