Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended to replace

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

boot disk A boot disk is a removable digital data storage medium from which a computer can load and run ( boot) an operating system or utility program. The computer must have a built-in program which will load and execute a program from a boot disk meeting ...

s and can be booted via

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...

, PXE, iPXE, CD-ROM, or

hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with mag ...

. Traditionally used by large corporations and

OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...

s (to

preinstall Pre-installed software (also known as bundled software) is software already installed and licensed on a computer or smartphone bought from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).free of charge The English adjective ''free'' is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') and "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity of ''free'' can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it ...

via

Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK), formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK or WAIK), is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system imag ...

(WADK) (formerly

Windows Automated Installation Kit Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (Windows ADK), formerly Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK or WAIK), is a collection of tools and technologies produced by Microsoft designed to help deploy Microsoft Windows operating system imag ...

(WAIK)).

Overview

WinPE was originally intended to be used only as a pre-installation platform for deploying Microsoft Windows operating systems, specifically to replace

in this respect. WinPE has the following uses: * Deployment of workstations and servers in large corporations as well as pre-installation by system builders of workstations and servers to be sold to end users. * Recovery platform to run 32-bit or 64-bit recovery tools such as

Winternals Windows Sysinternals is a website that offers technical resources and utilities to manage, diagnose, troubleshoot, and monitor a Microsoft Windows environment. Originally, the Sysinternals website (formerly known as ntinternals) was created in 1 ...

ERD Commander or

Windows Recovery Environment Windows Preinstallation Environment (also known as Windows PE and WinPE) is a lightweight version of Windows used for the deployment of PCs, workstations, and servers, or troubleshooting an operating system while it is offline. It is intended t ...

(Windows RE). * Platform for running third-party 32-bit or 64-bit

disk cloning Disk cloning is the process of creating a 1-to-1 copy of a hard disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD), not just its files. Disk cloning may be used for upgrading a disk or replacing an aging disk with a fresh one. In this case, the clone can r ...

utilities. The package can be used for developer testing or as a recovery CD/

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

for system administrators. Many customized WinPE boot CDs packaged with third-party applications for different uses are now available from volunteers via the Internet. The package can also be used as the base of a forensics investigation to either capture a disk image or run analysis tools without mounting any available disks and thus changing state. Version 2.0 introduced a number of improvements and extended the availability of WinPE to all customers, not just corporate enterprise customers by downloading and installing Microsoft's Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK). It was originally designed and built by a small team of engineers in Microsoft's Windows Deployment team, including Vijay Jayaseelan, Ryan Burkhardt, and Richard Bond.

Versions

The following versions are known to exist:

Derivatives

Windows Recovery Environment

Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a set of tools based on Windows PE to help diagnose and recover from serious errors which may be preventing Windows from booting successfully. Windows RE is installed alongside

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

and later, and may be booted from hard disks, optical media (such as an operating system installation disc) and PXE (e.g. Windows Deployment Services). A copy of Windows RE is included in the installation media of the aforementioned operating systems. It is a successor to the

Recovery Console The Recovery Console is a feature of the Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. It provides the means for administrators to perform a limited range of tasks using a command-line interface. Its primary function is to ...

Features

Windows RE features include: * Automatic Repair: Automatically finds and fixes boot errors in the

Windows Vista Startup Process The booting process of Windows Vista and later versions differ from the startup process part of previous versions of Windows. In this article, unless otherwise specified, what is said about Windows Vista also applies to all later NT operatin ...

caused by issues such as corruption of the following components:

Boot Configuration Data The booting process of Windows Vista and later versions differ from the startup process part of previous versions of Windows. In this article, unless otherwise specified, what is said about Windows Vista also applies to all later NT operatin ...

, disk and

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one lar ...

metadata,

Master Boot Record A master boot record (MBR) is a special type of boot sector at the very beginning of partitioned computer mass storage devices like fixed disks or removable drives intended for use with IBM PC-compatible systems and beyond. The concept of MB ...

, or

Windows Registry The Windows Registry is a hierarchical database that stores low-level settings for the Microsoft Windows operating system and for applications that opt to use the registry. The kernel, device drivers, services, Security Accounts Manager, and u ...

, and issues caused by missing or damaged boot and system files, incompatible drivers, or damaged hardware. Prior to Windows 8, this mode was known as "Startup Repair." The executable image for Automatic Repair is startrep.exe * System Restore: Same as the

System Restore System Restore is a feature in Microsoft Windows that allows the user to revert their computer's state (including system files, installed applications, Windows Registry, and system settings) to that of a previous point in time, which can be used ...

that is included in Windows, it allows a system's settings to be restored to those of a previous state. * System Image Recovery: Same as the

Backup and Restore Backup and Restore (formerly Backup and Restore Center) is the primary backup component of Windows Vista and Windows 7. It can create file and folder backups, as well as system images backups, to be used for recovery in the event of data corrup ...

component of Windows, it allows restoring a previously created

disk image A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is usu ...

. * Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: Analyses the computer memory (

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) for defects (not available on Windows 8 and later). The program does not run inside WinRE, but instead reboots the system and executes memtest.exe instead of loading the operating system. memtest.exe cannot be run inside Windows. *

Windows Command Prompt Command Prompt, also known as cmd.exe or cmd, is the default command-line interpreter for the OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS, Microsoft Windows ( Windows NT family and Windows CE family), and ReactOS operating systems. On Windows CE .NET 4.2, ...

: Gives

command-line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive command (computing), commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invokin ...

access to the file system, volumes and files. It can be used to run System File Checker (sfc /scannow) against an offline Windows installation and repair missing or corrupt files. Tools like

robocopy 
Robocopy, for "Robust File Copy", is a command line interface, command-line directory and/or file replication command (computing), command for Microsoft Windows.  Robocopy functionally replaces Xcopy, with more options.  Created by Kevin Allen and  ...

, diskpart and DISM can be used to perform various system tasks like recovering or backing up files, managing partitions, and fix servicing-related issues respectively. In order to use the command prompt, the user must sign into an administrator account. Starting with

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the sixth version of the Windows Server operating system by Microsoft, as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows 8 and succ ...

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012; it was subsequently made available for download via MSDN and TechNet on August 15, 2012, and later to ...

, the following additional options are added: * "Refresh" or "Reset": Both re-install Windows from a copy of the operating system on the hard drive. The "Refresh" operation maintains files, settings, and

Windows Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform ap ...

apps (but not other programs), while "Reset" performs a factory reset of Windows, optionally formatting the hard drive and performing disk wiping. The Reset function does not perform a full reinstall; it merely performs a factory reset from a WIM image inside a hidden recovery partition. It is possible to create a custom WIM image based on which a Reset is performed. * Startup Settings: Enforces a series of safe settings during the startup. Windows 10 adds the following: * Restore factory settings: Allows users who upgraded to Windows 10 to revert to their original operating system. * Go back to the previous build: Windows 10 is an operating system for which Microsoft occasionally releases newer builds. In the event that installation of a new build of Windows 10 becomes problematic, this option allows the user to revert to the previous build. Only appears if the previous build's files are not deleted. Volumes encrypted with

Bitlocker BitLocker is a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with Windows Vista. It is designed to protect data by providing encryption for entire volumes. By default, it uses the AES encryption algorithm in ...

can be mounted if a recovery key is available. Windows Recovery Environment can also be installed to a hard drive partition by OEMs, and customized with additional tools such as a separate system recovery tool for restoring the computer back to its original state. As of Windows Vista SP1, users can create their own bootable CD containing the recovery environment.

REAgentC

Windows includes the REAgentC command which is used to configure a Windows RE

boot image A boot image is a type of disk image (a computer file containing the complete contents and structure of a storage medium). When it is transferred onto a boot device it allows the associated hardware to boot. The ''boot image'' usually includes ...

and a push-button reset recovery image. It allows administration of recovery options and various customizations. The REAgentC tool can either be used on an offline Windows image or on a running Windows system. The command requires administrator privileges.

Microsoft DaRT

Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), sold as a part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, is yet another toolset based on Windows PE that performs diagnostic and recovery on an offline copy of Windows. It can manage files, edit

, uninstall previously installed Windows

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, scan system for malware and restore deleted files.

References

External links

Windows PE Technical Reference

Download Windows PE
{{Microsoft Windows family Windows administration Microsoft software Operating system distributions bootable from read-only media Live USB Live CD