What’s New in Platform 5.0

Platform 5.0 is the current generation of EasyDeploy and BootBuilder. The deployment model is unchanged — one USB, three flows, a hands-off 11-step engine — but the runtime, the media builder and the rescue tools have been modernised.

Engine — PowerShell 7 only

• The deployment engine now runs on PowerShell 7 (pwsh) only. Windows PowerShell 5.1 and the .NET Framework WinPE components are no longer required or shipped.
• Hardware access uses CIM (Win32_*) instead of System.Management, so a trimmed WinPE without WinPE-NetFx / WinPE-PowerShell is enough.
• The WinPE image is built from the WinRE base and carries only what EasyDeploy needs. Wi-Fi components come from that base (no separate WinPE-WiFi package).

BootBuilder — x64 and ARM64 targets

• A TARGET selector (x64 / arm64) with separate caches: .cache and .cache-arm64.
• A dedicated pre-check item for the PowerShell 7 WinPE payload: the zip under pwsh\ must contain a native pwsh.exe for the selected target (win-x64 / win-arm64).
• ARM64 media is supported — see ARM64 media.
• Fail-closed integrity: BootBuilder verifies its own signature on startup and refuses to run if the .sig is missing, the file was renamed or the binary was modified. It also verifies EasyDeploy.exe.sig before building media.
• One instance per machine: a second launch is refused while a build owns the cache.

Profiles are architecture-aware

• The Builder seeds the profile set that matches the target and strips the -arm64 suffix, so the media always contains the right answer file and scripts.
• The app filters the profile picker by processorArchitecture in unattend.xml. An x64 profile can never be applied to an ARM64 machine (which would fail at pre-OOBE).
• See Profiles Overview for details.

Tools menu

Two additions, both under Tools (no shortcut assigned):

Tool	What it does
Autopilot Hash	Captures the Windows Autopilot hardware hash in WinPE and writes a CSV you can import into Intune. Capture only — no cloud registration. See Autopilot hardware hash.
Event Log	Opens the offline Event Log viewer. It reads System/Application/Setup logs from the target volume (including a freshly deployed OS) and reports clearly when a volume is BitLocker-locked.

Inventory data (v2.1)

• Every deployment writes one inventory record — Inventory-<key8>-<ts>.json + .csv — on the OS volume (C:\) and the USB root. This replaces the v4 deploy-results.csv.
• The record covers identity, firmware, hardware, deploy context and USB/license fields; CSV is a flat 59-column view, JSON keeps the nested payload. schema_version remains 2; v2.1 is the additive field set (asset_tag, memory, battery, tpm_vendor, extended disks[]).
• Local files are written for every tier and every outcome (success/failed/cancelled). MSP Advanced has additional data-forwarding options documented in its private package.
• See Inventory Data for fields, file locations and privacy.

Configuration and licensing

• user-config.json gains a timezone key: the app applies it at startup (and refreshes the local time-zone cache so the clock is correct immediately).
• Free still requires no license and includes the two default profiles. MSP Advanced remains the only paid tier (annual, bound to a USB-SN batch) — there is no separate “standard” or “trial” edition.
• Inventory JSON/CSV is always written — behavior.deployLogCSV from v4 is accepted but ignored.

Upgrade notes

• Rebuild media with the 5.0 BootBuilder — older media still contains the 4.x engine.
• MSP Advanced backend/data-forwarding packages are versioned separately and documented in the package supplied with the license.
• Profiles created for 4.x keep working; for ARM64 targets use the arm64 variants (1.Tweaks-arm64, 2.TweaksApp-arm64) in the Builder cache or let the Builder seed them.
• Windows ADK + WinPE add-on and PowerShell 7.4+ are still required on the build workstation; the WinPE payload zip is a new required item.