Windows Recovery Environment

Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is a diagnostic tool based on Windows PE used for troubleshooting serious system errors that prevent booting into a proper Microsoft Windows environment. It is the successor to the Recovery Console, a command-line tool included from Windows 2000 till Windows Server 2003.

It was introduced with Windows Vista as a tool available on the setup disc, however, since Windows 7 it is installed by default with the rest of the operating system to a hidden partition. This allows the boot loader to automatically start the recovery environment whenever it deems it necessary.

Windows Vista and 7
In Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, the Recovery Environment is only available as an option on the installation disk. It included options such as Windows Complete PC Restore, Windows Memory Diagnostic and Command Prompt. The client version further adds Startup Repair and System Restore.

Windows 7, and by extension, Windows Server 2008 R2, was the first version to install the Recovery Environment tools into the hard disk, whose tools are present inside the System Reserved partition, and build 6519 is the earliest leaked build with this capability. This version replaced Windows Complete PC Restore with System Image Recovery.

Recovery Environment in these versions features a screen with the setup background and a window that uses the Windows Classic theme. It has buttons to shut down or restart the computer on the bottom right and displays links to recovery tools that run as separate windows (like Command Prompt) or on separate screens (like System Restore). When accessed from an installation media, a list with available installations to recover appears, where the user can select one and view its options, but when accessed from the OS, Startup Repair is automatically triggered in an attempt to fix issues without using advanced tools, although the user can skip this through a Cancel button to see the rest of the tools.

Windows 8 onwards
Windows 8 introduced a redesigned Recovery Environment based on the Metro interface. Recovery tools now include Refresh your PC and quick access to the Advanced Boot Options (known as Startup Settings) and UEFI settings. It refreshed the interface by featuring a new full screen that follows the Metro design lines, and divided the environment into several pages. The home or start page features four links: one to restart the computer into the OS, another to see troubleshooting options, another to shut down the computer, and another to boot to another operating system, which only shows if there are multiple installed. Another link was also added in Windows 10, which is present only when entering from the OS and allows the user to boot into any detected external media with additional options without modifying the BIOS boot order. The Troubleshooting page has two elements: a link to Refresh this PC (Windows 8 and 8.1 only), another to Reset this PC, and another to the Advanced options page, which contains the rest of the tools.

As pages now are full-screen rather than windowed, they lack a theme. However, tools that open in extra windows now use the Windows Basic theme instead of Classic, being one of the few times it can be spotted in the Windows 8.x and subsequent OS families since its removal from desktop use.

The new design would remove the installations list when booted from installation media, in favor of automatically diagnosing any existing copies of Windows that were installed to the device. The Startup Repair design would be largely modified to bear a boot-like sequence whilst inspecting the device for issues and performing repairs where possible.

Windows 10 added an option on the main page to boot to a CD, DVD or flash drive. The Refresh and Reset options would be merged into one, offering the option to either keep or remove personal files entirely. An option to roll back to the previous version or Insider build was also added to the Recovery Environment with the release of Windows 10. Since Manganese build 19536, the user no longer needs to enter the credentials of an administrator account if entering through OS-related methods.

The Windows Server family from Server 2012 onwards use the Metro interface for the Recovery Environment (much like their client counterparts), although the Troubleshoot option directly sends the user to what the Advanced Options are in the client versions. The Reset, Startup Repair and System Restore options, as well as UEFI firmware settings, are not available in the Server 2012 family.