Connecting a Device to a Network with Windows PE

The Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) can be used to connect a device that has no operating system (OS) to the network. Windows PE supports many standard network devices. Booting from enables the network and starts Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Once your device is active on the network, you can map shared drives or copy run-time images and applications to the device.

**Note   **Windows PE is on Windows XP Embedded CD-ROM Disc 1, or a separate Windows PE disc, depending on whether you have the Full Price Product or the Upgrade Product.

To use Windows PE to network a device

1. Connect a CD-ROM drive to your device.

2. Insert the Windows PE disc in the drive.

3. Configure your device's BIOS setting to boot from the CD-ROM drive and boot the CD. Windows PE starts.

   During the Windows PE boot process, networking services are enabled and the network interface is configured by means of DHCP.

4. If you want to map a shared drive, from the Windows PE command line use the net use command. For example,

   net use * \\<computername>\<sharename>.
   

   After the shared drive is mounted on the device, you can copy run-time images from the share to the device, or run remote scripts.

See Also

Windows Preinstallation Environment | Configuring a Hard Drive with Diskpart and Windows PE | Detect Hardware Devices with Target Analyzer and Windows PE

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