HOW TO BUILD A LIVE WINDOWS XP USB STICK

HOW TO BUILD A LIVE WINDOWS XP USB STICK

Putting Windows XP in your pocket

It is a well-known fact that Windows-based PCs tend to be quite temperamental. Often, all it takes is a seemingly harmless e-mail embedded with a little-known virus or some minor glitch in the Windows registry and your system can be mercilessly brought to its knees and rendered unusable.

Using a Windows live USB stick, you could recover data from an ailing hard drive with a corrupted master boot record; surf the internet without leaving a trace on the host system; use an instant messenger to ask a friend for assistance; view and edit your documents on the go; defragment locked files and even burn CDs.

All that's required is a USB flash drive, a computer with an internet connection (to download files required for setting up the USB flash drive) and a licensed Windows XP installation CD. Note that the USB key you use should have a storage capacity of at least 512 megabytes. USB sticks with capacities in excess of two gigabytes will work flawlessly as well.

Nevertheless, there are a few catches. For starters, this technique will only work on fairly new computers manufactured within the last two years that are able to boot off a USB flash drive. For older machines, BIOS updates may be available to resolve this issue. Also, while a large number of devices will be supported by this Windows live USB stick, hardware support is still quite limited and you may not be able to get peripherals such as your webcam, printer or scanner to work.

The program that will be used to create the live USB stick is Bart Lagerweij's free utility, PE Builder, which condenses files from a Windows XP setup CD to create a compact and portable version of Windows (dubbed 'BartPE') that includes all the essential tools you need to avert a PC disaster. Additional applications can be added to the BartPE setup through the use of 'plugins'. These include both freeware and commercial applications, such as antivirus programs like NOD32, CD/DVD burning applications like Nero and PDF editors like Adobe Acrobat, etcetera and are available at the BartPE Plugin Repository.

Getting started

This is a list of all the files you will need before proceeding with the creation of the live USB stick. The exact filenames of all the items are indicated within brackets.

• PEBuilder (pebuilder3110a.zip)

• XPE Plugin (xpe-1.0.7.cab)

• UBCD4Win Net Drivers (UBCD4WinNetDriversV205.exe)

• DriverPacks Base (DPs_BASE_805.exe)

• MassStorage Drivers (DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_805.7z)

• UltralSO (uiso9_pe.exe)

Procedure

Assuming you have already downloaded all the required items from their respective links mentioned at the end of this article and have your licenced Windows XP setup CD available (SP2 or later), the installation procedure is as follows:

Drag the contents of your Windows XP setup CD into a new folder called 'WINXP' on your hard drive. Although this isn't mandatory, it will substantially speed up the creation of the live USB disk image.

Extract the contents of the 'pebuilder3110a.zip' file into a new folder called 'PEBuilder'. Next, double-click the 'plugin' subfolder and create a new folder called 'XPE' here. Now, extract the contents of the 'xpe-1.0.7.cab' file into this folder.

If you wish to add some free utilities such as a stripped-down version of the Mozilla Firefox Web browser or a Microsoft Word replacement to your BartPE installation, download the relevant plugins using the links provided at the end of this article and extract their contents into the 'plugin' folder of the 'PEBuilder' directory. Otherwise, you can skip this step.

The default BartPE installation provides limited support for network cards. To ensure that your adapter is recognised properly, you will have to extract the contents of the 'UBCD4WinNetDriversV205.exe' file and place them into the 'Net' folder. This folder is located inside the 'drivers' folder in the 'PEBuilder' directory. The 'Net' folder will now contain several subfolders, each with its own set of drivers.

To be able to access all kinds of hard disks in the BartPE environment, first extract the contents of the 'DPs_BASE_805.exe' file to a new folder called 'Base'. Next, double-click the 'DriverPacks' folder located inside this folder and place the 'DP_MassStorage_wnt5_x86-32_805.7z' file there.

Now, run the file labelled 'DPs_BASE.exe' located inside the 'Base' folder. After selecting your language, move to the location page by clicking the '>' button twice. Under 'Installation platform', select BartPE, followed by 'Yes'. Click 'Browse' and point to the location of the 'plugin' folder located inside the 'PEBuilder' directory. Move to the next page. The 'MassStorage text mode' option will already be selected. Click on the 'Slipstream' button to complete the process.

Next, run the 'pebuilder.exe' file located inside the 'PEBuilder' folder to start the program. After accepting the license agreement, when the program asks to search for Windows setup files by itself, click 'No'. Under the 'Source' field, point to the 'WINXP' folder you have created earlier.

Click the 'Plugins' button at the bottom of the window. In the new window that appears, you will see a list of programs with 'Yes' and 'No' prefixes. To enable or disable an item, select it first and then click the 'Enable/Disable' button at the bottom of the window. You will see that the 'Yes' flag changes to 'No' and vice versa. Note that not all of the items available here are free to use.

Next, disable all the redundant items listed below:

• A43 File Management Utility

• Bart's Stuff Test (free edition)

• BartPE Installer v2

• Drive Snapshot

• Nu2Shell

• PENETCFG: Automatically start PE Network configurator

• PENETCFG: PE Network configurator (theTruth)

• Startup Group

Click 'Close' once you're done.

In the PEBuilder program window, set 'Media output' to 'Create ISO image' and specify a filename (such as 'liveusb.iso'). Click the 'Build' button and agree to the prompts that appear to begin the creation of the Live USB key image. Click 'Close' once the process is complete.

Now, install UltralSO to your hard I vl disk. After running the program, select 'File', followed by 'Open' and point to the 'liveusb.iso' file you created earlier. Next, connect your USB flash drive to your PC, select 'Bootable', followed by 'Write disk image'. Under 'Write Method', ensure USB-HDD+ is selected. Hit 'Write' and in a few moments, you will have your own Live Windows USB stick.

As a final step, you will have to change the system's boot order through your PC's BIOS setup utility. With your USB flash drive still connected, restart your computer and press down the 'DEL or 'F2' key (the BIOS setup trigger key varies from system to system) during the system POST process. Navigate to the section that contains the system's boot devices and change the boot order so that the USB flash drive precedes the hard disk. Save your changes before exiting.

BartPE should now load. Depending on the speed of your USB flash drive, this may take a while. To have an even greater variety of applications to work with, load your USB key with useful portable applications, such as the excellent suite from PortableApps.com, a unique collection of stand-alone programs that's packaged to run on any Windows-based system.

Disclaimer: When using BartPE, you must possess a properly licensed copy of Windows XP. The BartPE website reminds users that, "according to the Microsoft EULA for Windows XP/2003, a user may not simultaneously use more installations of these operating systems than the user has license(s) for."