Monday, November 19, 2007

How to create Windows XP Live CD, complete with preinstalled programs

Update: Looking for Windows 7 Live CD?

To create a Windows XP Live CD we will require

1. Bart PEbuilder
2. A CD burner like Nero
3. A bootable Windows XP CD and
4. Some pebuilder plugins to customize the CD.

Step 1: Download PeBuilder from here and install it. Make sure you have enough free space on the drive where you install the program. After you have finished adding all programs it will create an ISO to be burned into a disk. The size of the ISO will depend upon how many programs you add to your live CD. I would recommend atleast 700MB of free space.

Step 2: You may want to set a wallpaper that will appear on the desktop when you boot the CD. For this open the folder where you have installed PEbuilder and replace the file bartpe.bmp with the wallpaper of your choice.

Step 3: Download XPE plugin from here (direct download link). It's the GUI shell of the XP Live CD that will create the XP start button and taskbar. You are free to download as many plugin (applications) you want. Currently there are more than 500 applications to choose from. Both freewares and commercial applications are available. Antivirus programs like Kaspersky, NOD32, Avast; burning program Nero; media players like VLC; OpenOffice, Foxit PDF reader, Acrobat Reader etc are available.

Pebuilder plugins repository
More Plugins here

Step 4: After you have finished downloading all your favourite programs, open PEbuider and specify the source path to the Windows XP installation bootable CD. You can copy the CD to your hard disk and point the source to the copied file.



Step 5: Click Plugins and add all the plugins you have downloaded. Since we have added XPE, disable nu2shell and the startup group from the list of plugins.

Step 6: Specify the ISO image file and click Build. The program will integrate the plugins and create an ISO image.

Step7: Burn the image into a disk using any burning software and your live CD is ready.



The Live CD Desktop



Running Abiword



Running VLC Media Player


Source: Digit magazine Nov 2007 issue.

60 comments:

west158 said...

west158

lol, so so cool, yet so so simple, yet so so hard.....

Anonymous said...

Or just use Reatogo-X-PE @ http://www.reatogo.de/

Jimmy said...

I'm having problems with it, lots of getFileVersion() failed about ntdll.dll and when enabling/disabling plugins. any idea???

Kaushik said...

@Jimmy: I think you should start afresh.

Anonymous said...

bartpe is not working with winpe its generate err message "error while executing shdovwc.dll pl hpl

Anonymous said...

Hey i think this shit is really really cool. Think it helps if you have a crushed HDD. Thanks man it really helped me.
Sammy.

Faisal said...

The Plugin button is not working. There are errors in the link of Plugin Button.

Otherwise, that a tremendous tool.

Anonymous said...

I have problem with hard drive, I dont see my Harddisk in My Computer, in XP live. I dont know how to see it? pease help me.. Laci

Kaushik said...

Is your hard disk SATA? Does the live CD contains drivers for sata disk? Does your live CD has service pack2 installed? If not, download SP2 and the necessary drivers from the HDD manufacturer's site and integrate it into the live cd.

Anonymous said...

Hi, thaks for help. My disk is SATA and my Live CD has SP2. I´ll try download HDD drivers and itegrate to Live CD.My HDD is sharing in vista drivers.it´s the problem. Laci

Gassan_MostWanted said...

hi can we install certian free wares in xpe
eg. vlc k-lite
if yes can u help me with that
i am gassan, id gassan_mw@yahoo.co.in

rico said...

reech tanks very good! realy help me to solve my prblems

Naresh Punia said...

whats the average boot time ? I mean how fast is this bootable CD. I guess it will be quite slow as compared with hdd Install

Anonymous said...

oi...........can we add america online 8.0 or 9.0???if can...............how.....:D

Biabani said...

Wow, it really works.It Saved my Valuable Data From Absolute Damage.Thanks 2 the person who saved mine but lost his own.Really Thanks.

Anonymous said...

why whwn i burn a iso image and booting
its appear
"The file iaStor.sys could not be found,
press any key to continue" ??????

Anonymous said...

Very useful files search engine. http://Indexoffiles.com is a search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites.

Anonymous said...

Cool but, it does not go auto to Windows.

Anonymous said...

hi guys can any 1 pls help me i wnt to create silent installer my email address (sohail_mus2002@yahoo.com)

Anonymous said...

Worked great. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, this was great. Really cool and good description. Everything worked fine in the first short. Amazing stuff!!

Anonymous said...

Thanks - looks useful - but why does the source Windows XP CD need to be Bootable???

Kaushik said...

The source CD has to be bootable to make the Live CD bootable.

Virus X said...

Thank you very much
this is exactly what I was looking for
Thank again mate :)

Robin said...

Great!With this i can copy my downloads from a 1-disk computer withhout windows!
I dont want to install windows again!
Tnx!

Anonymous said...

thanxxx it worked...

Anonymous said...

thanks for sharing this idea. I tried it, its good. The only problem i am facing is, i am not able to connect to the net. I have a LAN connection, i have setup the connection in the same manner when i was using my hard disk for booting windows.pl suggest me the remedy.thanking you

taruna.kapupara said...

Any Kind Of virush Prob's Say Me
And Any Pc Probl's

Tarun Patel:9974802181

Anonymous said...

hey thanks for this..learnt alot from....
could anyone please tell how to exactly integrate sata drivers with live cd...
thanks

Anonymous said...

Man, you are great!

Anonymous said...

Another vote for Linux OS. Creating Live CDs is a native feature of Ubuntu (and, I believe, many others) and the whole OS (and most, if not all, of the easily installable programs) are completely free and changeable (i.e. Open Source).

zaiem said...

hi, i follow this tutorial and successfully create windows live cd..i cant access usb drive in My Computer..is there any way i can access my usb drive? thanks

Suresh Bhandari said...

Hi,
Can we get MS Office Plugin, if yes please share link.

thanks in advance,
Suresh Bhandari

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to understand how to use Windows XPE? This part you did not explain.

It doesn't look too graphical to me and keep getting warnings when trying to use it saying never should be running a machine running windows.

I don't understand it but your help would be helpful. Thanks!

MOHAMMED SHAREEF said...

i get a lot of error messages when trying to run aplications

Hamid Awan said...

How can I add software like .Net Framework 2.0, Firefox 3.6, etc (hich are on my hard disk and are .exe or .msi files)to the Windows XP live CD?

jeewantha said...

is it possible to run windows permanantly live. i can copy live CD to hard disk. and boot from it. this is to avoid viruses. please reply thanks jeewanthax@yahoo.com

Kaushik said...

@Hamid Awan: You can't EXE files only XPE plug-ins. I'm sure there is a way to convert EXE files to XPE. I will research on this.

@jeewantha: No, it's not possible.

I will try to add more screenshots of the process.

Anonymous said...

how do we add diferent hardware drivers such as ethernet or video card drivers with "partpe"

Anonymous said...

Going to test this tomorow :D


@jeewantha: if you can use the live in your cd-drive, why then install it on your HDD?
If you could install live onto the HDD it would not be any use, because then you would still be able to get viruses...


Now i go to bed... :) ZZZzzzzZZZzzzz

Anonymous said...

HOW DO WE FIX THE ERRORS. IT WOULDN'T CREATE THE ISO BECAUSE OF THE ERRORS. IS THERE ANY WAY TO BYPASS THIS AND FORCE CREATE THE ISO?

Anonymous said...

how did you get the task bar to look like that in the image where you're running VLC Media Player?

Ryan said...

Is there a citrix client plugin available?

jinu said...

Kaushik,

This is a great info.
How did you made this 'StartMenu' look like this? Please upload more detailed information of the process.

Your work looks so nice and very useful.
Why shouldn't you upload this (you work) on Rapidshare or any public torrent ?

I request you to update your work and put it any public site.

Thank you

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous

I know you think you understand what you thought i said but I'm not sure if you realize that what you heard is not what i meant

srikanth.ch said...

thanq....

Anonymous said...

Can it be done for windows server 2008 as well, if yes, is it the same instructions? wicked stuff, thx

Ron said...

Hi Body, this is really sick!!!
Thanks.

Anonymous said...

i did not see any players

Anonymous said...

Why there is no Start Menu

Anonymous said...

Do you want Ready made Windows XP Live CD!!!

Download it from the following link:

http://www.filesonic.in/file/948613664

Specifications:

1. Boot up within a minute.

2. Can run faster in slow PC's (Pentium 3)

3. Service Pack 2 Integrated.

sam said...

i cant add ghost in the live cd .... i dont hav ghost.cab file i only hav ghost.exe so plz suggest me .....

Anonymous said...

I'm getting a "missing kernelbase.dll" error and can't boot from the disc I made at all. Anyone else get this problem or know how to fix it?

Anonymous said...

Sir, I have a zte wireless net(bsnl wll) connection. Now how to add this software in a xp live cd. Biswajit Roy(1879@in.com)

Anonymous said...

If anyone searching for Kaspersky or ESET node 32 activation codes get from here:-

http://allantiviruskeys.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

i follow instruction but can not boot from my hp pavilion running win xp that is now broken hard drive. 256 mb ram. can somebody help?

Abdul said...

See how to create windows xp live USB from here:-

http://windowsxplivecd.blogspot.com

Also learn how to make a bootable USB.

vOOda said...

Hello.
How can I make my own plugins for Bart PEBuilder?

hemant babel said...

it shows dunping error while booting with cd

Abraham Levit said...

Fewer and fewer people are interested in this. SAD. all $$ went to apple

Post a Comment