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Introducing Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE)

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The Windows Recovery Environment (aka Windows RE) team would use this blog to share information, tricks and tips about Windows RE with support professionals and end-users of Windows. We would also like to use this blog to get feedback from the community.

So what is Windows RE?

Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) is a recovery platform based on Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). Windows RE provides two main functionalities:

1. Automatic diagnosis and repair of boot problems using a tool called Startup Repair.

2. A centralized platform for advanced recovery tools.

We will explain more about these two functions in upcoming posts.

Windows RE is new for Windows Vista and completely replaces the recovery console in Windows XP. You should be able to perform most tasks of recovery console from Windows RE.

How can end-users get access to Windows RE and Startup Repair?

For Vista RC1 release, Windows RE is available on the Windows installation DVD. To access Windows RE, boot using the installation DVD, choose your language settings and hit "Next" and then click on "Repair Your Computer" link at the bottom of the screen. This will launch Windows RE. After choosing an OS to repair, you should see all the recovery tools available in Windows RE.

After Windows Vista releases, Windows RE will be available via other convenient means as well. For example, OEMs may pre-install Windows RE on the hard disk and corporations (SA) can make Windows RE available for network boot via a WDS server.

 

So that's Windows RE in a nutshell. Watch this space for information on how to use Windows RE and Startup Repair to fix unbootable computers.

-Parveen

Comments

  • Anonymous
    September 17, 2006
    Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE)

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    Hi, sounds like an interesting prospect. One thing, does this check for hard drives on load, as with WindowsXP setup, it would crash on loading if a hard drive had a corrupt hard drive, and there is no where to access recovery console until it was remedied. Ironically by using a Recovery Console.

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    PingBack from http://rickmahn.com/2006/09/18/microsoft-introduces-windows-recovery-environment-winre/

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    PingBack from http://vista.technoreality.com/2006/09/18/introducing-windows-recovery-environment-winre/

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    I think you should by Bart's PE Builder. We need a live system to recover the registry of the died system. This is a most often case in this world - boot from CD, remove the registry key (change it) and boot the installation... Or start the antivirus from the CD.

    chkdsk isn't the only thing which could recover the system.

  • Anonymous
    September 18, 2006
    PingBack from http://www.session0.com/?p=23

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2006
    Making it available for network boot sounds great. Now, is it only good for repairing a Vista computer or can we use it to fix XP/2000 too?

  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2006
    WinRE can only be used to repair Vista computers.

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2006
    PingBack from http://vista.pcplace.biz/2006/09/18/introducing-windows-recovery-environment-winre/

  • Anonymous
    September 21, 2006
    Sorry to "dissapoint" you but this works on XP machines as well.  Been There Done That.

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2006
    As mentioned in the first post on WinRE , the recovery console has been deprecated in Windows Vista.

  • Anonymous
    December 14, 2006
    Is there a way to install WinRE to the local drive?

  • Anonymous
    January 07, 2007
    I would like to know how to install winRE on the local drive, and I think many others will find this beneficial, too.  Many times I am out, and it would be convenient not to have to boot off DVD every time, if we can just install winre with Vista on our image. How can we install it on the local drive?

  • Anonymous
    February 04, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2010
    Windows RE something I dont know thanks for sharing this article.

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 06, 2012
    Kids Dunk Low.......Whats that got to do with it ?????????????

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2012
    What Kids Dunk Low is saying it that at its lowest level, Windows RE doesn't need to boot on the HD or DVD as it originates at the suns centre. Very poingnant.

  • Anonymous
    January 27, 2015
    I wrote a package that contains a pre-configured WIM which includes WinRE, DaRT and Macrium Reflect Free. I have provided all the files and source code for my project free on my blog which can be found here blassdeploymentsolutions.blogspot.com