The Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) is used to begin the installation for Windows 7. This minimal operating system provides access to the tools needed to prepare a system and begin a full installation of Windows 7.

WinPE includes disk drive tools that can be used to partition and format them.

An operating system on a hard drive cannot be running while an image is being taken or applied.

The steps to create a WinPE boot CD, includes:

• Run copype.cmd to create the folder structure with the necessary files
• Copy winpe.wim to ISO\Sources\boot.wim
• Copy ImageX.exe and other desired files to the ISO folder
• Run oscdimg.exe to create an ISO file that you can burn to CD
• Burn the ISO file to CD or DVD

You can access WinPE from multiple boot methods:

• Booting to the installation DVD
• Performing PXE (Preboot Execution Environment) boot from WDS (Windows Deployment Services)
• Booting to bootable media (USB, CD, or DVD)

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