Making Windows XP bootable from a Pendrive

Note :-Your computer bios should be compatible with the usb boot function (most motherboards released on or after 2005 are compatible)

First of all download the following free tools:

HP usb stick format utility

nlite

Barts pebuilder.

Now follow the steps:-

STEP 1.

Formatting the USB flash drive Firstly, try to format the USB fl ash drive using the FAT 16 file system as most BIOS generally accept this particular format as a bootable medium. Surprisingly, the onboard Windows formatting tool did not work for us. So, we opted to use the “USB Disk Storage Format Tool” from HP instead. After starting up the program, choose the USB fl ash drive to be formatted and select “FAT” located under “File System”. Enter a name of less than 11 characters for “Volume Label” and click on “Start” to begin formatting. After the process is completed, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the root directory on which Windows is located - usually, “C:\”. Copy the “boot.ini”, “ntdlr” and “NTDETECT.COM” fi les from the directory to the USB fl ash drive. If you can’t locate the above mentioned fi les, try deactivating the “Hide protected operating system fi les” option found under “Tools| Folder Options| View” of Windows Explorer. Next, select “Show hidden files and folders” option as well. You should be able to see the fi les now. Copy them to the formatted USB flash drive.

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Copying Windows to the USB flash drive

The next process is divided into four stages. Firstly, you need to free Windows of any excess baggage. Secondly, prepare third-party utilities, then create a self starting copy of Windows and finaly, copy all of these to the USB flash drive....................... 

STEP 2. Standardizing Windows

To produce an optimal copy of Windows XP complete with service packs, hotfi xes and drivers, you can use a freeware called “NLite”. Note that NLite requires access to Microsoft . NET’s library, which needs to be installed on your system. This and Service Pack 2 are available on the Microsoft web site. The Service Pack and hotfi xes need not be installed as NLite will only integrate the necessary setup fi les. Remember to install the .NET-Framework before NLite. Before running NLite, create a folder named “XP” on your desktop. Insert your Windows setup CD into the DVD/CDROM drive and copy the whole CD into the new folder. Any changes made from now are done to the newly copied fi les in the XP folder. Do not meddle with the existing installed copy of Windows on your hard drive. Run NLite and select the “XP” folder as the root directory. Click on “Next” after the program completes reading the folder until you reach “Task Selection”. Activate options for integrating SP and hotfi xes as well as “Erase components”, “Patches” and “Tweaks”. With the help of the NLite wizard, you should aim to create an optimal streamlined copy of Windows. To minimize total fi le size and shed excess baggage, remove any entries highlighted by NLite as safe for deletion. Visit www. msfn. org (MSFN Forums - Member Contributed Projects - nLite) to get more information on the latest confi guration manuals and other useful tips on this program. Also, If you prefer to use an alternative browser such as Firefox, you may discard the Internet Explorer option but do include the “Internet Explorer Core” option so that useful features such as Windows Update can still function.

STEP 3. Preparing utility tools

The next step involves preparation of installation fi les for each utility tool to be included into the USB fl ash drive. If you want to include Firefox, do not use the full setup fi le from Mozilla’s web site. Instead, use the “Mozilla Firefox Plug-In” customized for “Bart’s PE” (available from http://oss.netfarm.it/winpe. Besides Firefox, you might want to include other software such as Ad-Aware, Nero Burning ROM and Avert Stinger anti-virus scanner. Any other software you deem necessary can be included but do take into account the space limitation of your fl ash drive. As NLite only creates a copy of Windows that contains setup fi les and not the installed version, we will not be able to copy the entire “XP” folder nto the USB drive. To create a bootable Windows XP, we need to make use of the “Bart’s PE” tool found at www.nu2.nu. after installing “Bart’s PE”, run “PE Builder” and insert “XP” as “Source”. When referring to this article, just use the default directory name provided (C:\PEBuilder319\BartPE, depending on your version of PE Builder) located under the “Output” section for convenience. Next, click on “PlugIns”. If you follow our recommendations, choose to activate the plug-ins for Nero, Ad-Aware and Avert Stinger. If any of your desired tools are not displayed, visit www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/#plugins to download the necessary plugins and extract the file into the plug-in folder of Bart’s PE. Every plugin contains a readme file that describes its installation.

STEP 4. Integrating safety tools

For each tool that was marked for inclusion, there would be a specifi c folder respectively found under Bart’s PE installation directory. All the necessary fi les should be copied here. This way, the selected tools will be installed with Windows. Let’s start with the Firefox browser. All we need to do is extract the downloaded plug-in into the “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin” folder. You don’t have to make any changes as the plug-in is already optimized for integration to Bart’s PE. Next, proceed to install Nero Burning ROM. Copy all the fi les from the Nero directory to the “nero burning rom” plug-in folder. In that folder, you will notice a fi le called “penero.inf”. Open it with a Windows text editor (e.g. Notepad). For Nero Burning ROM version 6, discard the semicolon (;) in front of [Software.AddReg] and for the three lines below. Edit in your username, company name and Nero serial number before saving, and closing the file.

Making Windows bootable

Up to this point, all preparations are ready. Ensure that the USB fl ash drive is plugged in and delete any fi le copied for the first test. Next, run PE Builder and make sure that “XP” is selected as “Source”. Deactivate the “Create ISOimage”and “Burn to CD/DVD” option. Click on “Build” so that Windows is created as a self-starter.

REMEMBER UR WINDOWS XP SHOULD BE A SERVICE PACK 2 ONE. 

Copying files to USB Flash Drive

With the help of a batch file, you will now

be able to copy Windows to a USB fl ash drive. Point Windows Explorer to the folder “C:\PEBuilder319\plugin\peinst” and run the fi le called “peinst”. In the opened DOS screen, select button [1] and change the source-path to “C:\ PEBuilder319\bartpe”. Next select button [2] and enter the letter in which the USB fl ash drive is located as your target path. Moving on, choose button [5] to install Bart’s PE and start through button [1]. Bart’s PE will now transfer all relevant data into your USB fl ash drive. When the “Installation completed” message shows, your USB version of Windows is ready for use. To test it, boot your PC with the USB flash drive. The USB version of Windows will look slightly different when compared

to the standard Windows XP. 

Source : Orkut

Protect your system from hackers

First of all, you need to switch to a good firewall.

Here is Sygate Personal Firewall. It is one of the most powerful firewalls i have ever used!

and secondly, go to start menu->run and type services.msc and press enter.

now double click Remote Registry, Routing and remote access and Remote Desktop Help Session Manager one by one and stop these services before disabling them and hitting OK in their respective property boxes.

Finally, right click my computer, and click properties. Under the Remote tab, uncheck the checkbox under Remote Assistance as well as uncheck the checkbox under Remote Desktop and hit OK.

as a final safety measure, change the name of your computer as well! 

go to my computer's properties and under the Computer Name tab, click the Change button and give a new name for your computer. This name is used to identify your computer on the network.

I guess now nobody can hack your system!

For ensuring your additional safety, also disable the telnet service from services.msc however its an optional step. But sometimes it can prove to be critical.

Tactical shopping

Its going to be festival time in for the next two months and there are lots of new dresses to be purchased for this festive season. This time i am going to buy a different attire for myself. I have planned to buy 5.11 Tactical Pants as they look great and also have a long life. I have always searched for quality pants and a good store to buy them. One great store to buy good quality 5.11 goodies is 511tacticaloutdoors.com. If you wish to buy great quality tactical goodies, then this online store is the right choice for you. 

My Best Antivirus

Right from the day I bought my computer, i have been using NOD 32 Antivirus. This antivirus has been my best for the past 4 years and i had no problems whatsoever i do in the internet. But, recently i used tunnelling software to make torrents work in my computer as torrenting is blocked by my LAN administrator. Along with the seeds and peers, it also brought me harmful Trojans and worms. NOD 32 was great in detecting those Trojans but it couldn’t clean up the infections. I don’t know why my best antivirus, infact the world’s 3rd best antivirus couldn’t clean the infection. So, i had no other choice than to try another antivirus to clean up my system. I decided to try with Kaspersky antivirus. But to my disappointment, Kaspersky also couldn’t clean that Trojan. I had no other way to format my system. But, i was very much impressed with Kaspersky as it scanned my entire computer in no time and also it blocked a lot of intrusions from my network. I thought i would try kaspersky for some time in my system and now, after a month my computer is still virus free even after some hefty torrenting. Kaspersky really rocks. But still, NOD 32 is my favourite antivirus as it has kept my system secure for 4 years!!!

Inner 8 - makes your future bright!!!

The world has seen a drastic change over the past few weeks. With the downfall of biggest banks of the US, the financial scenario around the world is under deep trouble. It’s high time that every one of us have realised how crucial our future investments has to be. We need to be careful in investing our money as even the bigger companies are also bound to fall anytime. For a normal people like us we cannot have financial assistants assisting in our investments. But you can look and learn from high performing investors. A place where this could happen is Inner 8. Inner8 is an intelligent community where their innovative analytics are the next generation of personal investing. At Inner8 you can get answers for your queries from your own circle of trusted investors. You can acquire personalised, actionable, real time investment ideas. With their analytics and your insight, you can easily acquire profitable investments. Their tools works by translating your market views into smarter views. If you enrol yourself with Inner 8, you will get investment ideas from experts and also you can make use of your own expertise to get investment ideas. Once you expertise in this you can suggest your ideas to others. With this kind of community, we get ideas to secure our money and our future too.

Back to Vista!!!

For the past 6 months, i was using Windows XP as i had problems in accessing the network shares of my LAN in Vista. XP has been my favorite OS and recently i read an article that its performance has improved 10% with the service pack 3. The reason why i switched to Vista is that i downloaded a new game which would give me a better experience with the directX 10 available in Vista. And also, i wanted to check whether the bug of LAN access has been fixed with the Vista SP1. For these reasons, i installed Vista SP1 and i should say that my LAN access is very much improved. The NTLM proxy authentication software 'ntlmaps', which created problems with IE7 in Vista now works fine. And also the gaming experience is great when compared to XP. I think i should continue with Vista SP1 for some time. But the bad news is, i could not dual boot Mac OsX Leopard with Vista. :( Hoping to find a solution for this.

Enjoy yourself at Morey's Piers

For the past few months I have been sitting at home doing no work. The reason is that my job posting has been delayed due to certain reasons. In the mean time, I kill my time watching movies and hanging out with friends. Hanging out is one thing I love to do my entire life. I love to go to various places and one of my favorite hangout spots are amusement parks. I like the amusement parks for the thrill rides they offer. One of my favorite amusement parks is the Morey’s Piers and Beachfront Waterparks. It is one of the best New Jersey water parks and I have been there many times. One main reason why I have been there many times is that, there are many special offers available which saves you a lot of money. Different offers for every day and you will surely enjoy those offers. If you plan for a family beach vacation, Morey’s Piers is the best place as there are great rides for your family members. Quality accommodation is available at the same place and you need not worry about the food as they have quality restaurants providing you tasty foods. There are more facilities available at Morey’s Piers which makes it one among the best amusement parks in the world.

Yet another blog - Fantys

It was at the peak of my luck, when i registered myself with Socialspark, i was flooded with opportunities. I used to write only sponsored posts on this blog and few non sponsored posts to satisfy the PPP and socialspark terms and regulations. At that time, i thought that i needed a personal blog to express myself ( though am an Aircel customer, LOL ) and my views on various things. I started a new blog in my nick, named Fanty's in May. Unfortunately, i was engaged in other things and because of that i left Fanty's unmaintained. Now, am totally free round the clock and thought of posting in Fanty's. First of all i wanted a cool template for it and searched the internet and found one of the coolest template. You could visit the blog @ fantys.blogspot.com and post in your comments about the template. I hope i could regularly post interesting stuffs in both of these blogs apart from sponsored posts in Jala Bula Junks. Alrite, visit my new blog and take a look while i go out and catch some fresh air. Cya ppl!!!

Create hype for your products!!

Online marketing is one of the effective ways of improving your business. But now there is another form of marketing known as Social marketing that is helping both advertisers and publishers to mutually benefit. There are very few places where the advertisers and publishers / bloggers can meet and one such place is iHype. At iHype, advertisers can create a campaign and get traffic to their sites and eventually make their product popular. On the other hand, publishers can get paid for publishing articles. It is such a great system that lets both advertisers and publishers grow together. It also results in search engine optimization. I am going to register myself with iHype. What about you?

Comparison of Memory consumption by popular browsers!!!!

Well, i am not a testing professional of softwares rather am just an end user. I just wanted to know which is the best browser for my computer. As i said in one of  my earlier posts, i have been using more than 5 browsers in my PC and wanted know which is the best among them. I ran Internet explorer 7, Firefox 3, Safari, Flock and Google Chrome on my system all running google.com. ( well, google is my home page and so i left the browsers as such ). The results showed that Internet explorer 7 was the least memory consuming browser and the highest memory was consumed by Flock. I knew that flock would take up the highest memory as it has got various options embedded in it like the media bar etc. Another thing that captured my attention was the various individual processes of Google Chrome, which i think corresponds to individual tabs. These individual processes are responsible for making Google Chrome shut down the non responding individual tabs without closing the other working tabs. Here is the image of my task manager showing the browser memory consumptions. 

Looking at the image, i felt that safari was good for me, but it annoyed me in matters related to proxy authentication. It would freqently ask for the proxy username and password and also showed cache administrator errors while opening certain sites like orkut, yahoo etc. Then comes my favorite Firefox. There is no much difference between Safari and Firefox's memory consumption and it had no problems with my proxy server. It ran smoothly without any problems and most of all, it was fast, very fast. Flock consumes too much memory. The reason why i use flock is that, it is compatible with firefox addons and the media bar is very useful in performing some useful searches. 

So, in my opinion, Internet explorer 7 is the lighest browser but it doesn't have many options that are found in Firefox 3. Moreover, Firefox 3 is fast and i feel Firefox is the best browser for me. 

Any comments regarding this topic is welcome.