moonlit Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Ever wanted a livecd or liveusb version of Windows to carry around with you? Sure, there's USB versions of Windows floating around the torrent sites but their legality is questionable and who knows what kind of crap people have infected them with. Now you can make your own, and I did just that over the last few days... Using WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) you can build your own USB or CD based version of Vista using Windows Preinstallation Environment 2.1. What this means is that you'll have a very basic copy of Vista (did I mention it's free and legal?) on which to build your own live "distro" of Windows. I'll admit there are caveats, it won't run every app that ever ran on Windows (for example anything that requires .net Frameworks) but it will run a ton of apps, including many portable apps (mIRC, VLC, Firefox, etc - the basics) and it doesn't come with Explorer so you'll have to find your own desktop environment (I chose bbLean). Drivers can be injected but it seems a bit of a pain to get everything working though thankfully I've not had a problem with networking. To download the WAIK direct from Microsoft, check out http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;DisplayLang=en and while I'd love to give a how-to I'm not going to be able to explain this particularly well. I might make an attempt in the near future, but in the meantime, here's a few starting points: http://blogs.technet.com/jamesone/archive/...windows-pe.aspx http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/joshs_bl...-0-usb-key.aspx http://grandstreamdreams.blogspot.com/2007...ot-dvd-wim.html http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/winvistape2.htm To give an example, here's a couple of screenshots of my effort so far: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Lestock Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 That's dope moonlit... Might have to play with that a bit! Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deleted Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 I Think I will stick to my BartsPE Boot CD. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 ParanoiaStick :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted August 12, 2008 Author Share Posted August 12, 2008 ParanoiaStick :) Yeah, I had Putty on the original version for SSH tunneling, and I can write protect the SD card it's on... I was gonna try BitLocker but I'm not sure if I can do that with WinPE... Plenty of opportunities for paranoia-soothing tweaks though, I'm sure stuff like TrueCrypt would work too. Would work well for a hostile networking environment I think, it has minimal services and apps running, the device it boots from can be write protected, the OS runs from a RAM disk which means everything's gone after a reboot, SSH means a nice tunnel out to a known safe machine, disk encryption would be nice so if you lost the stick/card then your files would be safe or second best, file encryption for the stuff you'd rather not be found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DingleBerries Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 thats a huge download.. still going to try it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joerg Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 @Moonlit: I installed an operating system on my sd card, but my laptop didn't boot from it (I assume the card isn't powered on bios/post). But it runs on my thumbdrive nevertheless. For disk encryption I recommend dm-crypt/luks (linux) or truecrypt (windows). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted August 12, 2008 Share Posted August 12, 2008 Yet another use for WAIK! This is damn nice though, sure beats ubuntu for system recovery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markhimself Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 thats cool i had so many issues with even trying to install xp from usb, so i might pass on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swathe Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 God damn awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unasoto Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 I've always said live distros are training wheels and you have to take them off some time :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaKo Posted August 25, 2008 Share Posted August 25, 2008 http://www.autoitscript.com/gimagex/ http://www.msfn.org/board/WinPE-2-Made-Eas...ma-t112503.html These tools make using WinPE2 far more simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metatron Posted August 25, 2008 Share Posted August 25, 2008 I've not really had much use for making Windows portable as I can just use Windows XP Professional for Embedded Systems or Windows Vista for embedded systems and get better results for my needs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saxon Posted August 25, 2008 Share Posted August 25, 2008 Very cool, I am looking forward to giving this a go later on this week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueHart Posted August 25, 2008 Share Posted August 25, 2008 ill have to try this. if nothing else just as a way to recover or a way to run my stuff on a closed off box. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nullspace Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I have been a big fan of the Windows ultimate boot disk project. Currently you have both the live windows os and knoppix on a DVD or put it on a USB. I am pretty sure you could get any live distro to work if you didn't want knoppix. It seems to have been built off of BartsPE. Do really remember has been a couple months since I made mine. linky: http://www.ubcd4win.com/ you need to supply your own windows source and key so you can be legit if you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I've not really had much use for making Windows portable as I can just use Windows XP Professional for Embedded Systems or Windows Vista for embedded systems and get better results for my needs. I don't see you creating a tutorial on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metatron Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I don't see you creating a tutorial on it. I don't see why a should. If you want to do something learn it off your own back, don't expect to have it spoon fed to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SomeoneE1se Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 Just in case someone doesn't want to read the whole thing here's a summary. Moonlit: Look Vista on a USB stick here's where to get more information on how to do it. Other Random People: Cool! Metatron: That's lame, my way's better! SomeoneE1se: Yeah? What's you're way? Metatron: Fuck you, figure it out yourself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psydT0ne Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 ...mmmm k i'd like to play with it...y not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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