Recommend me a Windows XP live CD

[anon]

Title. Hiren's Boot CD includes one, but it's severely out of date (pre-SP1) and doesn't work correctly when booted from a USB drive. I'm looking for something small that's newer and works from USB.

[Master Razor]

What are you trying to do?
Is it necessary to have a windows live OS (see question 1)?

[anon]

What are you trying to do?
Is it necessary to have a windows live OS (see question 1)?

I use Hiren's Mini XP a lot at my work, to run Windows-only backup and recovery tools. The problem is, it's not designed to run from a USB drive, so only the ultra-basic bare bones part of the OS gets to run. Not even Notepad is available on it. I'm looking for something better that doesn't have this problem. Would also like to have a live OS which can run DiskCryptor for personal use (to mount the system volume offline and decrypt images on emergency cases) and that demands that at least Service Pack 2 code.

Perhaps I should just build my own? I've read a little about BartPE/WinPE but never got any deeper with that.

[Master Razor]

I would not use Windows XP to do anything. It just doesn't run today's applications well anymore. SP1 is dead, SP2 is near the edge not to mention SP3, see where I'm getting at?

Instead of stripping down windows XP or 7 why don't you use winPE. winPE (windows PreInstalled Environment) is what you see when installing windows 7 (select partition, copying files etc) without the installer.
Out-of-the-box is nearly 230MB which contains only CLI based applications (diskpart, robocopy etc) and a desktop. Cleanest you'll ever get from MS.

Here is what I mean: EzPE3 - reboot.pro

I've read a little about BartPE/WinPE but never got any deeper with that.

Not necessarily. If you have a decent USB stick with at least 8GB of space, why not take the whole Windows with you instead of mini?
You could use PWBoot

Remember, only try if your stick has good speeds. You'll curse it otherwise.

So in a nutshell, these are your best options. Either one will be excellent and forget about BartPE crap. If you are going to learn something start with winPE, possibilities are infinite.

[anon]

I would not use Windows XP to do anything. It just doesn't run today's applications well anymore. SP1 is dead, SP2 is near the edge not to mention SP3, see where I'm getting at?

Well, I intend this to be an all-round tool that can operate on as many systems as possible. And Windows 7 demands more resources than XP, as is noticeable when you compare the minimum requirements for both. However, a special setup like this intended to be small and portable probably has a smaller gap, and be worth the tradeoff.

I'll have a look at EzPE3, it looks like what I'm looking for.

[starforce]

hilo m8
this is one off the best boot cd
UBCD for Windows
it is all the time update
end you well need this rufus iso to usb http://rufus.akeo.ie/ it is frree
why to you need it ?
have fun

[starice]

TinyXP bro.

[anon]

Here's what I did in the end. I took the Mini XP from Hiren's Boot CD 15.2, injected some programs, then modded it so that it would boot correctly from an ISO, chainloaded by a GRUB4DOS bootable USB stick. The result was a mere 60 MB which works fine and has everything I need (somehow I managed to add a working copy of DiskCryptor, by copying the program, its driver and an INF file). The DOS tools can also be "split" in a similar fashion.

You guys are going to kill me for asking for your advice, then blatantly disregarding it

PS: Rufus is a good tool to make a bootable flash drive. Here are other tools I personally use and recommend.
RMPrepUSB
Booooooooting • View topic - [ BOOTICE: A poweful boot-related utility ] - v1.3.1
OSFMount - Mount CD and Disk images in Windows, ISO, DD
XBOOT – Multiboot ISO USB Creator (Windows) | USB Pen Drive Linux

I remember when I didn't know shit about MBRs, PBRs, partition tables, and thought just dropping a few files in the root of a volume magically made it bootable. Good times (I still have a couple of such "magic" floppies).