Task Sequence Restart
I just stumbled on this today; i.e., I can’t take credit for all of it (http://develnet.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html).
It is a great way to restart a task sequence from within Windows PE preventing the lengthy hardware reboots particularly on servers. Simply kill TsmBootstrap.exe and start a new instance of TsBootShell.exe. You can kill TsmBootstrap.exe by starting the command prompt and then starting task manager by typing “taskmgr” (unfortunately, taskkill is not available by default in PE). You can then launch a new instance of TsBootShell.exe from the command prompt or the run line of task manager – do not kill the existing instance of TsBootShell as this is the main shell used by PE during OSD and killing it will cause all other processes to be closed and the system to reboot.
This mainly works if you forgot to advertise the TS properly or the TS never really kicks off properly but you are still in PE. If the TS bombed part way through, it leaves files behind that prevent a new TS from properly starting. The one time I had a chance to test this on a failure half-way through the process, it gave an error about not being able to properly read the TS environment (or something like that). In hindsight, we should have formatted the C drive from the command-prompt and tried again, but it was late on Friday we we weren’t thinking straight anymore.
The entire scenario is difficult to test as a whole, so your mileage may vary but what do you have to lose if the TS bombed anyway.