WinPE
WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment) is a stripped-down operating system designed to prepare a computer for installation. It can be booted on a computer with no operating system (a bare-metal system). CapaInstaller OS Deployment uses WinPE as the boot image that runs the OSD client.
What WinPE provides
Section titled “What WinPE provides”Before WinPE, IT departments often used an MS-DOS-based boot floppy disk to start a computer. That approach had no support for the NTFS file system, native networking, or Windows device drivers. WinPE overcomes these limitations and provides:
- Native support for the NTFS file system, including volume creation and management.
- Support for TCP/IP networking and client-side file sharing.
- Support for Windows device drivers.
- Native support for a subset of the Win32 API, scripting and WMI.
- Startup from a number of media, including CD, DVD, USB flash drive and a PXE server.
How OSD builds the boot image
Section titled “How OSD builds the boot image”CapaInstaller OSD builds the UEFI boot images from the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK) and the Windows PE add-on for the ADK. They must be installed on the computer where you run the CapaInstaller console to build the boot image. See Prerequisites for OS Deployment.
You build the boot image from the OS Deployment point: right-click the point and click Boot Image → Create boot file…. You can create boot images for 64-bit UEFI, 32-bit UEFI and legacy BIOS systems. When you build the boot image, you can add WinPE feature packs and extra drivers, such as network and storage drivers. After the build, update the OS Deployment servers so they use the new boot image.