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."

Comments

LiveCD Windows

[geomon]

I've been running BartPE on machines at work and it is the best. We tried similar commercial products based on Windows PE and have found this open source tool to be the most flexible way to get a bootable Windows image customized to our corporate profile.

But Bart's is not the officially sanctioned Windows PE: In the Technet Webcast about Windows PE a Microsoft Program Manager (not calling any names) says: "BartPE is an unlicensed version of WinPE and of Windows XP. Something to we really encourage people to stay away from because it is actually an improperly licensed version of Windows".

"The Man" doesn't like BartPE; all the more reason to use it.

Re:LiveCD Windows

[jdigriz]

According to Bart PE's own web page, that Program Manager is in error.
  It says "Q. "BartPE is an unlicensed version of WinPE and of Windows XP."
A. This is not correct, BartPE is not WinPE and will never be WinPE. BartPE builds from Windows XP or Server 2003 files. BartPE is not built from any WinPE file and does not use any files that belong to Windows PE!
Note: Previous versions of PE Builder did instruct the enduser to download certain WinPE network components from the internet when enabling the network support, but v3.0.30 and higher have built-in network support."

From: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ under the Legal Information section.

Re:LiveCD Windows

[geomon]

So what sort of violation are you looking at? DMCA violation? Copyright violation? Breaking your shrinkwrap?

None, no, no, and ummmm...., no.

It would seem that given the illegality of this,

Why? The OS is Microsoft's. The builder is Bart's. He just bypassed the WinPE, not the OS. You still have to create the LiveCD with Microsoft products and follow the EULA for their OS. The same is true for WinPE products developed commercially and with the blessing of the Borg. ...you'd might was well not do it, and use a different OS, like NetBSD, FreeBSD or some Linux-based OS.

Why? If my customers are using Windows, and I am trying to correct a problem in Windows, so that my customer can continue using... Windows, why would I use some *other* OS? If they were using Linux, I would use Knoppix to fix their system.

The last thing I need is the BSA (Business Software Alliance) coming to my place of business with a bunch of pigs and poring over my crap to find violations and then hit me for $20K per violation.

Then don't use pirated software. BartsPE is his own work, free from Microsoft's code. He just came up with a method for creating a LiveCD that is different from other companies who use Microsoft's PE software.

Re:LiveCD Windows

[Izago909]

When using BartPE you should know that:

1. It is legal to make a "backup copy" of ANY files from your original Windows XP/2003 media to another media.
2. It is legal to add any other files you wish to the backup media.
3. It is not legal to use a BartPE CD and an installed Windows XP/2003 both at the same time under the same Windows XP/2003 EULA.
4. It is not legal to change any binary files in the process according to the Windows XP/2003 EULA. This makes "winlogon" and "bootscreen" hacks illegal.
5. A BartPE image is (and I quote) "not a properly licensed WinPE". This means that if you want to have a licensed WinPE, you cannot use BartPE. However, you can use a BartPE image under the license of the Windows XP/2003 EULA that came with the BartPE XP/2003 source media.

Re:LiveCD Windows

[CptSkippy]

Why? If my customers are using Windows, and I am trying to correct a problem in Windows, so that my customer can continue using... Windows, why would I use some *other* OS?

I would use the best tool for the job, which isn't always an OS of the same flavor as the one you're trying to repair.

Case in point, something happened to my XP system that caused the dreaded "Page Fault in Non Paged Area" BSOD every time I booted my system. Microsoft said it was bad memory and after swapping everything in my system out to no avail I popped the HDD in another PC to get the files off it and guess what happened when I booted it. Yep, BSOD. Odd when every HDD analysis tool said the drive was fine. Given that it is a SATA drive I booted the other PC without the HDD connected and then hot plugged it. After about 10 seconds of installing new hardware the PC gave me that ever so lovely BSOD message "Page Fault in Non Paged Area". Hrmm... threw it back in the old PC and booted off the XP install media and guess what the XP setup program did? If you guessed BSOD, you're correct. I didn't even know you could BSOD the setup program, it looks like a DOS app with it's lovely ASCIIness.

So what's a guy to do if he can't use any Microsoft product to repair his system? Well I booted off a Knoppix disk and mounted the HDD without problem, then I copied my files over the network to another PC. Being that I know nothing about Linux and the partitioning program I found in Knoppix gave me no help and a couple errors, I booted off a Fedora Core disc I had laying around and used it's partitioning utility to zap the disk. Then I booted off the XP disc and it let me reinstall the system.

Without a non Microsoft OS, I would have never been able to reformat my HDD or recover any of the files.

So, fellow Slashdotters...

[Tackhead]

> Windows XP In Your Pocket

So, fellow [male] Slashdotters, is that Windows XP in our pockets, or do we all just have a case of blue balls?

Re:So, fellow Slashdotters...

[shigelojoe]

or do we all just have a case of blue balls?

With Windows involved, wouldn't it be the Blue Balls of Death (BBOD)?

And to update your BIOS

[moonbender]

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.

And to flash your updated BIOS, just boot the system to DOS using your USB boot drive! See how useful those things are!

or perhaps

[834r9394557r011]

you could run qemu or knoppix and have a secure os for that kind of stuff.

Re:or perhaps

[tbonius]

the WindowsPE/Bart PE concept is actually pretty handy for setup and deployment of Windows based systems, as well as a great recovery tool for Windows.

Some might reply "try !insert favorite Linux distribution here!", but as stated earlier, when you need a tool for Windows, this actually works pretty well.

Another concept we have implemented here at my place of employment, is to create a small PE partition at the beginning of the drive.. and then install the actual production OS on the secondary partition. When any issues arise, we can remotely reboot to the first partition and run one of many different build/recovery options.

It is interesting that an older tool such as PE is just now making news in some places.

Bart PE works great

[Nerd Systems]

I've used Bart PE many times in my PC business, http://www.nerdsystems.com/ and it has saved the day so many times. I routinely fix computers for people that have registry errors, video issues, and more, that have me locked out of the system, not even able to get into things using safe mode...

I'm currently running Bart PE off a CD, where I just pop the CD in, boot off it, and a few minutes later I have full access to the machine, and can repair anything that I need to get done...

This USB method will work even better, can just load Bart PE onto my USB drive, load all the applications that I use often, such as Anti-Spyware and more, and go from there....

I wonder if USB drives being so fast, and being read/write, if one day I could just run the entire OS off this USB drive, and pretty much have my complete system working wherever I go....

Bart PE is great... going to try out the USB method right now as we speak...

Re:Bart PE works great

[sconeu]

Unit conflict

USB 2.0 = 480Mbps = 60MBps
PATA EIDE = 133MBps

I have no idea what SATA data rates are, but they're bits per second rather than bytes.

Is this news, or a dupe?

[eander315]

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.

EULA

[kdark1701]

"And by the way, it doesn't violate the Windows XP EULA."

Like anyone here honestly cares about that silly text file.

Re:EULA

[ch-chuck]

If you don't read the EULA and agree to the TOS, they can't give you a COA and lower your TCO, then you'll be SOL.

How fast are USB flash drives?

[GPS Pilot]

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.)

Re:How fast are USB flash drives?

[KillShill]

no. most usb thumb drives and the like have hideously lower performance than a hard drive. the so called "hi-speed" 40-60x flash memory is approximately 10-15 MB/s which compared to recent hard drives are in the 30-50 MB/s range.

if it's cheap, you can be guaranteed that it's around 7MB/s. this is still faster than 52X cdroms (which never reach 52x in the real world). and 15MB/s is faster than 8x DVDs.

solid state doesn't automatically make it fast or faster. it depends on the characteristics of the device in question. flash is getting faster by the year. and there are even some "dual channel" drives which combine more than one flash chip to increase throughput.

next gen flash memory is rated at 40-60MB/s, which
is quite a bit faster than most end-user 5400rpm hard drives and on par with high end disks. of course, you still have the problem of flash being small in storage size. and the biggest devices are no more than 4-8GBs; far too low to be of use in replacing HDs.

still they have their uses. they run cool and take up very little space. these would be perfect for embedded devices and small form factor systems. among many other uses one can conceive of.

BartsPE and Windows Server 2003 Evaluation version

[wrecked]

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.

USB Problems

[SLOviper]

I use this tool at work all the time - mostly for recovering files from problematic systems and for virus/adware scanning. It works great! That said, I tried putting BartPE on a USB key back about 6 months ago to no avail. It works great right up to the point that XP initializes your USB devices - then *POOF*, no more boot drive. The RAM drive is a clever workaround and I will have to give that a shot. If you're using Dell's, however, I wouldn't expect too much luck. The older Optiplex's don't support USB booting and the newest ones seem to not like the BartPE variant. I did have luck with the GX270 series, however. Just posting my experiences for others to learn from...

Is that Windows XP in your pocket?

[Junior J. Junior III]

Or are you just happy to see me?