Windows PE

PE stands for Preinstallation Environment, not to be confused with the Portable Executable format.

Windows PE is bootable from media such as CD-Rom, USB flash drive, hard disks etc. The base version (without added drivers, packages or apps) requires only 512 MB of memory.

Windows PE is used to

• Automate the installation of a Windows system on a systm where no previous Windows installation is found
• Deploying Windows
• Repair Windows 10 desktop editions

WinPE is an add-on to the ADK (Windows Assesment and Deployment Kit).