Windows Pre Environment, or Windows PE, is an execution environment designed to assist in installing and troubleshooting operating system installations. Rather than the old blue-background, text-based installation screen with previous versions of NT, Windows PE comes in graphical format and contains a full complement of tools to assist with getting Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista installed on a drive.

 

The big win with Windows PE is that standard Windows network drivers work with it out of the box—no hunting for special NDIS drivers only for network deployment use. Additionally, it has a built-in firewall to protect the operating system in its most vulnerable state, when it is partially installed, and the ability to insert drivers from any sort of removable media into the session. You might recall the frustration of only being able to add a driver by hitting F6 at the right moment of Setup and then having the driver only on a floppy disk. Windows PE eliminates this annoyance.