MS Windows Pe (Bootable Wincd)

Microsoft Windows PE (= Bootable WinCD)

One of the coolest and most unknown products Microsoft has released is called the Windows XP Preinstallation Environment, or Windows PE. In short, it's Windows XP-on-a-CD. You boot directly to a Windows XP GUI, which allows you to set up your computer to install Windows. This is a wonderful utility for those of you who regularly use DOS boot disks or Windows Setup to set up your computer for installation.  

The Specs

As Microsoft states: "Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE) is a minimal Win32 subsystem with limited services, based on the Windows XP Professional kernel running in protected mode. It contains the minimal functionality you need to run Windows Setup, pull an operating system from a network share, automate basic processes, and perform hardware validation."  

Oh wait... there's more  

As Microsoft states: "WinPE is a bootable CD that supports all mass-storage and networking drivers contained on the Windows XP Professional CD and includes:"  

A hardware-independent Windows environment for both x86 and IA64 architectures, with a small footprint on both the bootable media and in memory.  
A subset of the Win32 API, a command-line interface (Cmd.exe) capable of running batch files, and support for standard scripting environments used to create custom tools or scripts.  
Network access and support for standard network drivers that may be required for copying images and test suites from a network using TCP/IP. (You can add or remove network drivers to customize WinPE.)  
Support for all mass-storage devices that use Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows .NET Server family drivers. (As new devices become available, you can remove unneeded drivers or add additional drivers.)  
Support to create, delete, format, and manage NTFS partitions. (Hardware diagnostics can be run by loading and testing specific hardware drivers.)  
More Features  

There are two different versions of Windows PE - 32-bit and 64-bit. One is for the x86 architecture, and the other for IA64, respectively. WinPE is too large, of course, to fit on a floppy disk, but it will however fit on any other bootable media, including a CD-ROM, DVD, a RIS server, or just on a machine's hard disk. The CD image weighs in at around 120MB, but takes up a mere 40MB of memory after fully booted (x86 version). Here's a more detailed breakdown of where the space is going:  

Directory Approximate Size
System32 66MB  
System32Drivers 29MB  
inf 4MB  
fonts 9MB  
Extras 8MB