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Windows XP In Your Pocket
BoredStiff writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of the Bart PE Builder software utility takes Windows XP and shrinks the OS to your USB flash drive. Besides converting your mini-drive into an emergency boot disk, you can use the utility to load a Web browser, media burning software and more - to have handy anywhere you go. And by the way, it doesn't violate the Windows XP EULA." From the article: "If your PC has a relatively new motherboard, its BIOS will already include the functions necessary to support USB-attached boot media. If so, you need only make the right selections in that BIOS menu to boot from a USB flash drive. Older PCs, on the other hand, won't accept USB drives as valid boot devices. This means a BIOS update that supports USB boot options is necessary. You can find information about where to obtain such updates from your PC's (or motherboard's) user manual, on the driver CD included with the PC (or motherboard) or on the vendor's Website."
This was covered long ago. I fail to see how it becomes newsworthy because the goons at Tom's just discovered it. Putting it on a USB flashdrive rather than a CD doesn't really cut it either, though from RTFA, I gather that's what has gotten them breathing heavy.
The crazy thing is that a "full" install of WinXP (which BartPE is not) can NOT boot from USB. If you don't believe me, try it.
Unbelievable...
I've never tried to boot from one. Since flash drives are solid-state, are they faster than a real hard drive?
(I assume that if you're connecting it to a USB 1.0 port, the USB connection would be the bottleneck, and you'd get much faster boot times connecting to a USB 2.0 port.)
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I've had to make a BartsPE CD so that I could use a Windows-only firmware utility. It wouldn't work in Wine, and I didn't know how to use qemu or the like, so I thought of going through the BartsPE route.
I didn't want to pirate a copy of XP, so I downloaded the evaluation version of Windows Server 2003 instead (BartsPE needs at least XP or Server 2003). Although the Server 2003 evaluation version on the harddrive expired after 180 days, the BartsPE CD created from that install still works.
I found that BartsPE was a real pain to build, because you have to hunt down all the software and drivers, and edit *.ini files.
BartsPE is kind of cool, and is better and faster for accessing NTFS partitions than captive-ntfs, but compared to Knoppix (and its derivatives), it's not that useful.
Knoppix has far more and useful software and networks automagically. Unlike BartsPE, you don't need to build Knoppix, you just download it and burn it to CD.
Bart PE's been arond awhile! I came across an iso image which someone had put on the p2p networks awhile ago... I think they called it "Windows PE" at the time, but whatever... it was Bart.
Anyways... The iso resulted in a bootable cd which allowed you to boot into a stripped down Windows client, a windows installer, partition magic, and a whole host of other useful (and obviously unlicensed ) software.
It looked to be a very helpful "toolkit" to have, since you could basically fix any Windows boot issues, in addition to performing formats, partitions, and such, with the point and click familiarity of Windows. I remember just thinking that being able to boot into Partition Magic was a pretty neat trick, much less to have a workable system (not 100% "working", but useable).
If I recall, BartPE walks the fine line of licensing by requiring the user to create the Windows discs, using their own personal software, so the p2p version was obviously someone's creation they chose to share with the world, but it was still very cool! At the time I remember thinking that it was more accessible than Knoppix for the avg. non-*nix person, at which this is obviously aimed.
I type this as 40+ machines in the same room as me use PE to launch the installer for our client's baseline system image. It installs the following:
:D)
-Windows XP Pro
-Drivers for the system (detects model and installs appropriate drivers, and extra software - like IBM's Rapid Restore Ultra on all IBM/Lenovo machines)
-MS Office (I'm just a monkey here to run this site's deployment, I don't make any decisions)
-Extra stuff used by the client (firewalls on all laptops, burning software on IBMs with burners, DVD players, etc)
All in all, it's a rather powerful (and simple but extendable) automated Windows installer. I like it.
In fact...I think I'll look into this tonight, and tommorow when I'm back in (Hey, overtime is enough reason for me to not play WoW and come to work, seeing as it's 10 blocks to work
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
hey, it's cool that pc's can now do what macs have done from day one - which is boot from firewire.
... i didnt think this was possible! (at least usb1; not sure about usb2) ... can anyone elaborate with specifics?
but can mac's boot from usb?
the new opod NANO looks like it would make an awesome boot drive (i was hestiating to buy it for precisely this reason: i didnt know usb was bootable!)
now if someone can only figure out a reliable way to have multiple (bootable) partitions (hfs/ntfs/ufs etc) on a flash drive, then there will be nirvana!
thanx: dlf