Windows Recovery Environment Recovery Environment, Advanced Options section screen, showing six of the seven available options (System image recovery is shown when the "See more recovery options" button is clicked.)
Windows Recovery Environment (
WinRE) is a set of tools based on Windows PE to help diagnose and recover from serious errors which may be preventing Windows from booting successfully. Windows RE is installed alongside
Windows Vista and later, and may be booted from hard disks, optical media (such as an operating system installation disc) and
PXE (e.g.
Windows Deployment Services). A copy of Windows RE is included in the installation media of the aforementioned operating systems. It is a successor to the
Recovery Console.
Features Windows RE features include: •
Automatic Repair: Automatically finds and fixes boot errors in the
Windows Vista Startup Process caused by issues such as corruption of the following components:
Boot Configuration Data, disk and
file system metadata,
Master Boot Record, or
Windows Registry, and issues caused by missing or damaged boot and system files, incompatible drivers, or damaged hardware. Prior to Windows 8, this mode was known as "Startup Repair." The executable image for Automatic Repair is startrep.exe •
System Restore: Same as the
System Restore that is included in Windows, it allows a system's settings to be restored to those of a previous state. •
System Image Recovery: Same as the
Backup and Restore component of Windows, it allows restoring a previously created
disk image. •
Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool: Analyses the computer memory (
RAM) for defects (not available on Windows 8 and later). The program does not run inside WinRE, but instead reboots the system and executes memtest.exe instead of loading the operating system. memtest.exe cannot be run inside Windows. •
Windows Command Prompt: Gives
command-line access to the file system, volumes and files. It can be used to run
System File Checker (sfc /scannow) against an offline Windows installation and repair missing or corrupt files. Tools like
robocopy,
diskpart and
DISM can be used to perform various system tasks like recovering or backing up files, managing partitions, and fix servicing-related issues respectively. In order to use the command prompt, the user must sign into an administrator account. Starting with
Windows Server 2012/
Windows 8, the following additional options are added: •
"Refresh" or "Reset": Both re-install Windows from a copy of the operating system on the hard drive. The "Refresh" operation maintains files, settings, and
Windows Store apps (but not other programs), while "Reset" performs a factory reset of Windows, optionally formatting the hard drive and performing
disk wiping. The Reset function does not perform a full reinstall; it merely performs a factory reset from a
WIM image inside a hidden recovery partition. It is possible to create a custom WIM image based on which a Reset is performed. •
Startup Settings: Enforces a series of safe settings during the startup. Windows 10 adds the following: •
Restore factory settings: Allows users who upgraded to Windows 10 to revert to their original operating system. •
Go back to the previous build: Windows 10 is an operating system for which Microsoft occasionally releases newer builds. In the event that installation of a new build of Windows 10 becomes problematic, this option allows the user to revert to the previous build. Only appears if the previous build's files are not deleted. Windows 11 adds the following: •
Quick Machine Recovery: This is a variant of Automatic Repair, with the additional capabilities of Windows Recovery Environment being able to look for boot problem solutions via
Windows Update. This option replaces Startup Repair if turned on, starting with
24H2, build 26100.4770. Enabled and shown by default for
Windows 11 Home devices. Volumes encrypted with
Bitlocker can be mounted if a recovery key is available. Windows Recovery Environment can also be installed to a hard drive partition by OEMs, and customized with additional tools such as a separate
system recovery tool for restoring the computer back to its original state. As of
Windows Vista SP1, users can create their own bootable CD containing the recovery environment.
REAgentC Windows includes the REAgentC command which is used to configure a Windows RE
boot image and a push-button reset recovery image. It allows administration of recovery options and various customizations. The REAgentC tool can either be used on an offline Windows image or on a running Windows system. The command requires
administrator privileges.
Microsoft DaRT Microsoft Diagnostics and Recovery Toolset (DaRT), sold as a part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, is yet another toolset based on Windows PE that performs diagnostic and recovery on an offline copy of Windows. It can
manage files, edit
Windows Registry, uninstall previously installed Windows
updates,
scan system for malware and
restore deleted files. There is currently no
Windows 11 version of Microsoft DaRT. It is currently unknown if there will be a DaRT11, or that DaRT will just stay on
Windows 10. == See also ==