AOMEI PE Builder

Designed to support the tasks that AOMEI Backupper and AOMEI Partition Assistant can perform for you also for free, AOMEI PE Builder is a free utility that can just as well work on its own to create bootable Windows environments on a CD, a DVD disc, on a USB flash drive, or as an ISO image file without the need for installing the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK).

This free utility comes in two flavors - a standalone version and a bundle version, which includes other two free and highly useful AOMEI tools, namely Partition Assistant and Backupper.

For AOMEI PE Builder to work, you need to have Windows PE (Pre-Installation Environment) installed on your system. This modified version of your Windows OS was designed for troubleshooting when your OS fails to load or simply to make a quick diagnosis of your OS using a number of built-in tools. PE Builder is capable of creating a PE-based bootable environment in just a few easy steps so that you can boot up your PC from an external source whenever your native operating system fails to do so. If created on a 64-bit computer, the resulting media will be compatible with both BIOS and UEFI, and it will allow you to recover all your data whenever any version of Windows turns unresponsive.

The creation process couldn’t be simpler. AOMEI PE Builder comes with a step-by-step wizard that will guide you throughout the entire process and will inform you about the most convenient choices. The first choice you’ll have to make is about the compatibility of the bootable media you are about to create. The program can produce a Windows PE for Windows 7 and 8 straight away or download a Windows 10 WIM image to make your media compatible with any Windows from XP to 10 (new to this version). Next, you’ll be asked to choose which File, Network, and System tools will your Windows PE include, as well as which drivers and utilities you can’t do without and would like to throw in. Note, however, that the basic PE that AOMEI will create for you already includes a full-featured desktop with a file Explorer, a Windows recovery environment, AOMEI Partition Assistant and AOMEI Backupper (if you downloaded the bundle version), together with a set of free utilities to read PDF files, compress and decompress archives, PENetwork, etc., as well as all those drivers and tools that you decided to add to it.

AOMEI PE Builder can save your bootable environment in a recordable disc (CD or DVD), as an ISO file (that you can then mount or burn to disc using a third-party tool), or on a USB flash drive (not a USB external disk). If you ever need to make use of your bootable media, just run your custom Windows PE from the selected drive and you’ll be presented with a Windows-like familiar desktop packed with icons to all the tools you need to manage, back up, and recover your files in the most convenient and stress-free way.