Question

• What Does PXE stand for and what are the benefits?

• What is Reliability Monitor?

• What are PXE and Reliability Monitor used for and their Benfits?

Answer 1

a)

The Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) is an industry standard client/server interface that allows networked computers that are not yet loaded with an operating system to be configured and booted remotely by an administrator. The PXE code is typically delivered with a new computer on a read-only memory chip or boot disk that allows the computer (a client) to communicate with the network server so that the client machine can be remotely configured and its operating system can be remotely booted. PXE provides three things:

1) The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), which allows the client to receive an IP address to gain access to the network servers.

2) A set of application program interfaces (API) that are used by the client's Basic Input/Output Operating System (BIOS) or a downloaded Network Bootstrap Program (NBP) that automates the booting of the operating system and other configuration steps.

3) A standard method of initializing the PXE code in the PXE ROM chip or boot disk.

Some of the key benefits of PXE are:

• The client machine or workstation does not require a storage device or operating system.
• Network extension and the addition of new client computers is made easier because PXE is vendor-independent.
• Maintenance is simplified because most tasks are performed remotely.
• Centralized data storage provides information security.

b)

If some programs and apps (or Windows itself) crash or stop responding often, you can use Reliability Monitor for basic troubleshooting.
Reliability Monitor is available in Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. Windows XP has no alternative to this.

Reliability Monitor analyzes event logs and displays a list of changes (program and driver installations, updates and removals), plus crashes and errors.
The program also comes in handy if you're buying a used computer and you want to be sure it works fine.

To start Reliability Monitor in Windows Vista, 7 and 10, type "reliability" into Start menu Search box and click Reliability and Performance Monitor (Windows Vista) or View reliability history (Windows 7 and 10).

c) As discussed before, PXE is used for three purposes:

1) The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), which allows the client to receive an IP address to gain access to the network servers.

2) A set of application program interfaces (API) that are used by the client's Basic Input/Output Operating System (BIOS) or a downloaded Network Bootstrap Program (NBP) that automates the booting of the operating system and other configuration steps.

3) A standard method of initializing the PXE code in the PXE ROM chip or boot disk.

And, reliability monitor is used to view the stability history of your computer. It allows the user to identify previous warnings as well as past critical and informational events. The picture below shows an example of what the reliability monitor looks like running on a computer with Windows 7. As can be seen in this picture, each day is broken down into columns. When a column is clicked, additional details appear about that particular date.