How to create a Windows PE from an installed XP

[razvannh]

I have used BartPE to create a few PEs, but, I was wondering if it's possible to create a live windows xp cd, that means creating an image of the windows XP install partition, make a cd and run Windows XP from it.

I've done this with Windows 98, I was running it from a ramdisk (I've learnt how to this in a post here on MSFN).

Given the fact that I have a Windows XP install which is as big as 300 MB, could I somehow create a live cd from it?

[ChrisBaksa]

What you want is Symantec's Live State Recovery Product.

It will do a "Ghost" of the OS while it is running to a UNC path.

You can restore the entire OS in a few minutes.

Chris

[razvannh]

Not exactly what I am looking for, thanks.

I'm trying to find a way of making a live cd, like a linux live cd, but I want it to be a full windows xp live cd, not like BartPE.

The programs I've tested with BartPE were able to run, but they crash or generate errors. That's the reason why I am looking for a way to make a complete live cd with windows xp.

Edited August 13, 2005 by razvannh

[winwingwind]

Remembering something in PE is called XPE. Since I just started this thing, looks like you will need to get the I386 out of it and use a plugin called XPE then it should work fine. But like all other live CDs, you will not be able to save stuff on the desktop because the default setting would be saving on the disk. In addition, if I remember correctly the PEs would not be able to autorun your usb devices, which means you will need to mount the driver into the disk before you make a disk.

[Nuno Brito]

You can create a PE boot disk as small as 30 Mb and use it launch the windows install process if you wish (launch the setup files from another folder not as I386) - I've never tried to use the same folder as both source and target at the same time (mostly for fear of corrupting the source while testing)

This is a good question, I wonder how possible it can be?

About liveXP and PE environments - there's a lot of things that can be added and customized, and this is done trying to meet your expectative of functionality/ISO size/speed.

Which USB devices wouldn't autorun?

At this moment there is very good support for removable media USB devices, and you can add more drivers as needed.

There is also a full blown live XP project that can be found here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MobileOS-t1218.html

Boots from USB and the image is very light. Unfortunatelly the process to build it is somewhat complicated at this moment, so I recommend if you the PE environments as mobile platform while this newer project gets further improved.

If you post which programs you were trying to run, maybe it would be easier to make them work than going for all this sort of effort.

In most cases you only need to add a few missing dependencies/services or registry keys.