General Methods for System Maintenance Using WindowsRE

Microsoft introduced WindowsRE starting with Windows 8 to facilitate system maintenance for IT professionals. If you have concerns about the security of third-party WindowsPE tools you’re using, you can directly maintain your Windows system using WindowsRE and treat it entirely as a PE environment.

However, since WindowsRE lacks a graphical user interface and only provides a command prompt with English-only support, it can pose some challenges for IT personnel.

This article introduces some excellent file explorer tools that can run within WindowsRE, making it easier to open files, back up data, and use software utilities.

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How to Boot into WindowsRE?

There are several ways to enter WindowsRE.

• If Windows boots normally, hold down the Shift key while clicking Restart to enter WindowsRE.
• If Windows fails to start, press F8 repeatedly during boot to enter WindowsRE (for laptops and tablets).
• If you force a power-off three times while the Windows logo is displayed, the system will boot into WindowsRE on the next startup.

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How to Run Software in WindowsRE?

To launch software within WindowsRE, follow these steps:

• Type notepad in the command prompt and press Enter.
• In Notepad, click File > Open in the top-left corner.
• In the file explorer that appears, change the filter at the bottom to All Files (*) instead of just text files, so all files are displayed. Otherwise, only .txt files will show up.
• Navigate to the location of your tool or software.
• Right-click the software and select Open to run it.

Note: Do not double-click the software directly in the selection window, as this will open it with Notepad. For executable files (.exe), this will result in garbled text.

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What Software Can I Run in WindowsRE?

Generally, any software that runs in WindowsPE can also run in WindowsRE. However, the standard Windows File Explorer (explorer.exe) cannot be launched, so you’ll need an alternative file manager. My recommended replacements are:

• q.exe
• explorerpp.exe
• 7-Zip

These three tools require no additional dependencies and work in a pure PE environment. explorerpp.exe offers a user experience familiar to Windows users and is highly recommended. The only downside is that it lacks a Chinese language version.

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Recommended Maintenance Scenarios

Using WindowsRE for system maintenance is often necessary when USB ports cannot recognize flash drives or are disabled, when the computer requires high security and prohibits booting third-party PE systems, or when you cannot access the UEFI firmware’s quick boot menu or settings interface to boot from a USB PE system.

Therefore, it’s best to memorize the disk partition and exact path of your tools in advance, so you can launch them directly via command prompt.

Example Scenario

You cannot boot into a USB PE system, and your maintenance tools are on a USB drive. The 7-Zip software is located at \000\7zfm.exe on the USB drive.

• In the command prompt, type diskpart to open the disk partitioning tool.
• Type list disk to display all disks connected to the computer.
• Identify your USB drive by its capacity (e.g., Disk 1 is the USB drive).
• Type select disk 1 to select the USB drive.
• Type list vol to list the partitions on the USB drive.
• Identify the partition containing your tools by its capacity.
• Note the drive letter of this partition (e.g., E).
• Type exit to leave diskpart.
• Type e: and press Enter (replace with the actual drive letter).
• The command prompt’s working directory is now on drive E.
• Type 000\7zfm.exe to launch 7-Zip as your file explorer.

  If you accidentally close 7-Zip, simply reopen it using the command prompt.

You might ask why I didn’t just use the Notepad method I mentioned earlier?

I just wanted to introduce you to another approach :)

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Now that you’ve opened a “file explorer,” I assume you don’t need me to explain how to use tools to install a system. If you really do, my previous WeChat public account articles have covered it in great detail.

Open the door to a new world of WindowsRE with a file explorer!