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The Pre-installation Environment portion of the name is due to the typical purpose of WinPE: to serve as a minimal operating system for use by Windows installation/setup and recovery features. When installing Windows, the Windows installation disk normally loads WinPE, and then loads Windows Setup.
Windows PE is used for tasks other than installing Windows, though. Many computer manufacturers create special partitions on the computers hard drive, or else provide special disks, to restore the computer to the state that it was in when it originally was purchased. In most cases, this recovery software uses WinPE as a basic operating system. Many companies that make hard disk imaging software also use WinPE as the operating system for powering their restore disks.
Microsoft distributes WinPE as freeware. That means that it is free to use and to share, but it cannot be sold. The license for WinPE also includes restrictions that prevent it from being used for commercial products.
WinPE also contains many technical limitations. It is not able to operate in a multiple user mode. It will not run for extended periods of time without rebooting. It is also missing many components normally found in Windows. Most significantly for the blind user, the version of WinPE found on Windows installation disks does not include most components required for sound, drivers for sound devices, Microsoft text-to-speech voices, or Narrator.
The pre-installation environment must be restored in the event of an unsuccessful installation.
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