What is Digg?57 Comments
- draugen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Hi :) thanks for the digg :). (martin/draugen @ 911cd.net/forums here)
For the lazy ppl who want to test this, (most) relevant info is in the first post. To get the really smallest size possible, it is neccesary to read a bit int the thread yes.
Without UPXing, i have a BartPE that runs A43, bbLean, Small CD Writer and Regedit in a ~45 MiB ISO. The base bootable ISO is ~31 MiB w/o UPXing - Just UPXing/makecab'ing this takes it down to ~20 MB. Sadly, this compression is a bit buggy, as it breaks certain GUI apps (Small CD Writer f.ex.)
the 16MB size is thanks to Nuno Brito (user @ 911cd.net/forums, and creator of batcher) who figured out which Wine DLL's were interchangeable with MS's ones. Go him!
I currently have figured out how to add networking, and i have DHCP/TCPIP working. SMB filesharing is tricker though - something breaks "net use" rather horribly. As soon as i figure that one out, i'll release a .script for net too :)
--martin - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19It cannot be "compiled" in the strict sense of the term. I used the term "compile" in the looser context. What you end up with at the end is a compilation of ReactOS, WINE, and WindowsXP dlls. Batcher is actually a scripting engine that assimilates the best of open source with a handful of files from your WindowsXP cd, UPX compresses them, CAB files are made of other items, and what you get out of it is a 16 meg (or so) ISO.
- eclectro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12If it can be compiled, why isn't there a ready-made torrent already?? Save everybody the hassle.
- zach_sp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Same reason people try to hotrod Vista betas. It's a proof of concept thing. 16MB is truly amazing.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10if you took everything that sucks out of xp
the iso would be 0 megs - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9There are tons of potential uses. The guys on this forum have gotten to the point where they have most of the work automated using a program called "Batcher". All I had to do to create the ISO was follow a few steps and pop in my Windows XP cd.
Here's a few potential uses:
Windows/Apache/MySQL/PHP/PERL aka WAMPP on a live CD
OpenSource (nearly) Windows Backup/Repair CD
BartPE optimization (they use techniques like UPXing dlls that BartPE hasn't implemented) for more space on your current BartPE CD
Plus the speed in which it loads nearly puts some tiny Linux Live CDs to shame. - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9It's not a by-the-definition compile, it's simply to take care in making sure you download the right batcher link (a few pages in) to have it "script" or arrange the files appropriately. It *does* require you have a legit XP cd to create and it's only a command prompt in a GUI. The potential of something like this turning into a 32-bit FreeDOS equivalent is high.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Boxen != a real word
Boxen === correct hacker lingo
Virii === correct hacker lingo
and therefore valid use on the Internet. - Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Just a question, but since this is so hacked up, will it still require you to activate windows?
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8no
(not tested this one, but bart pe never required activation) - hchaudh1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@theHM
Point well taken.
But what triggered my knee-jerk reaction was the heading of this Digg "Windows XP Live CD in a 16 meg ISO (MicroPE)". Its not a USABLE live CD by any stretch of imagination. The heading just implies a bunch of stuff which it should not. - mixpix405, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10Well, technically it is a seperate "proof of concept" once you get networking up and going. First is just dos + gui. Next is dos + gui + networking. Im extremely impressed with the size of this whole deal.
And for the record, we dont care that it is useless TO YOU. This site isnt just FOR YOU. Grow up, kid. - osuchasenuts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I work in tech support at a university, there is no way im using captive. Too risky.
- kelvie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Or, you could go open source and try qemu...
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/ - kalphegor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6can I play Quake 3 with it?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8why would u want to do this, bartpe is one of the best tools i have with plug ins galore. the standard xp build works fine. put it on a floppy and I'll be impressed. a CD has 700 MB why waste it?
- aplardi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5In theory, shouldn't some of these Windows Boot Discs work on an intel Mac? with some modding?
- michaelbolton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4should probably start with Duke Nukem
- theHM, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7hchaudh1: no one said it was intended for any actual use. like you said, it's just proof of concept; a bunch of people just wanted to see how small they could make it.
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Limited to PS2 input devices ONLY: no USB or serial mice".. with some modding, don't see why not.
- dognose, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This thing should not be called Windows XP live. Sure, it may have some xp parts, but it doesn't do crap. It doesn't have networking! The ISP size will be growing as they decide to add features. And, the fact that they can't build it and distribute a copy makes it extremely hard to get set up.
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yea, for guys like you, dognose, this will probably be beyond you, however, for those interested in making a really personalized boot disk (or thumbdrive, cdrom, whatever) it will be a perfect starting point. You don't always need a network or access to the internet to diagnose a problem on a PC. Also, not everyone will use this as a diagnostics/emergency boot disk. I have a Bart's PE boot CD set up with plugins for Firefox and my newsgroup reader, email app, and uTorrent. It does not have a hard drive, and its just there for a quick internet appliance, with a 1 Gig usb thumb drive for torrent downloads. I also have another smaller boot CD set up with no networking or internet apps, which is used strictly for diagnosing hardware issues (motherboard, memory, processor, hard drive, modems, etc. It takes a little effort to learn how to use and assemble a PE disc, but its worth it.
BTW, I owe a lot to www.911cd.net for help with the plugins for my boot disks... Thanks. - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yes, I did click the wrong reply. This was sometime last night. When it hit the front page this morning, I felt I should readdress it better. It would be nice to have that kind of an interface tweak, it would have avoided confusion.
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A 'ready-made torrent' would probably include copyrighted files from the MS XP install CD, which would put the forum owners/operators in danger of having their site shuttered by legal issues. Having said that, I'm sure some industrious wanna be hacker type will upload a version to your favorite tracker site eventually.
However, in the current state, this is almost useless for most people. Modifying it with apps that YOU need would be ideal, making a 'ready-made torrent' useless. - IncognitoCraven, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4A proper CD has 650 MB, and then you have these mini-CDS or business card CDs (180MB, or less).
- mooninite, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4NTFS write support has been around for ages. It's called "captive" so google it.
- SomeBody1970, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Be very wary of the bushtorrent site mentioned - PeerGuardian blocks it and identifies it as "AtrivoHell.CWS.BS.Hijackers|Malware Network"
- Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4found it, the link was linking here:
http://batcher.catch-free.com/downloads/batcher/batcher115.zip
When it should be linking here:
http://batcher.catch-free.com/downloads/batcher/batcher116.zip
notice it was looking for ver. 1.15 instead of version 1.16 - ISVDamocles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1DWatch: Why in the world would you use a Live Windows for those tasks, though? The Unices have better and more varied diagnosis tools, unless you're planning to diagnose a Windows NTFS partition, and there's nothing quasi-illegal about Linux and BSD live CDs...
- Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The answer, as I'm sure you expect is: Absolutely. Potentially someone could take this 16 meg base and shrink it even more, but supposing you have the base, you could then look at adding USB, networking, or modulize what you want and don't want, much like Linux Live CD modularization (along the lines of more what SLAX offers, not what Knoppix does). Most of the first post explains what to do to get certain drivers working.
Keep in mind, this is a developing project, you're seeing it *AS* it is being worked on. They are still in the beginning phases, but potentially that 16 meg ISO could be shrunk even further. Once they get to a "bare" base, they can create more scripts (using Batcher) to allow you to do mix-and-matching. - sunglr, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1I need it , that's all
- Duston, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Looks nice but a quick search on http://thepiratebay.org will give you many ready made boot disks with several utilities included. (assuming you have a license for the included software of course.)
- robwistar, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6clicked the wrong 'reply'
digg admins: enough people are messing this up that you may want to re-think the reply button location. - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I highly encourage you to read the thread as a whole, but if you do just want to jump into it (and have some experience with BartPE or Windows Unattended Installs), follow these directions:
0) If for some reason you don't already use 7zip, get it.
http://www.7-zip.org/
1) Here's the direct link to the 2 meg 7zip Batcher script. Download it. Extract the 7zip archive to it's own folder. FOR THE SAKE OF BANDWIDTH, do not click unless you've already got 7zip and are really intending to try this.
http://batcher.catch-free.com/downloads/micrope/microPe.7z
2) Download Bart's PEbuilder. Extract/Run and install it.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
3) Run PEbuilder, insert your Windows XP or 2003 CD, make note that the output directory should be the "Source" directory for the 7zip archive of Batcher above. It helps if you've used BartPE at least once before to make a Live CD.
4) Right-click and go to properties on the "Source" folder, uncheck the "ReadOnly" attribute.
5) Run Batcher. It's pretty straightforward from there. It'll run QEMU and test your new 16 meg ISO (which should be in it's own "ISO" folder after Batcher is done running). Mine was 16.0 MB (16,867,328 bytes). But I think users on the forum may have used Windows 2003 CDs as the sources to get even smaller. There's little doubt in my mind that this number will continue to shrink.
6) If you have problems, post on the thread linked in the original Digg. Don't post a response here, Digg is *NOT* a technical support forum for something like this. I'm just posting this step-by-step to show how easy it was for me. - Yorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Of course it will grow, but with Batcher, it's modularized. Say you want an XP Live CD. Currently you create one with BartPE, and it's too big to fit on a Business Card CD. So what are your options? Compress, compress, compress.
This project is starting with the tiniest PE/Live CD possible, and then adding components. I'm glad a lot of people here are approaching this with a healthy degree of skepticism, it's good to get feedback and such. MicroPE has the potential of say, SLAX, though, in that it will be come whatever packages/modules you want to slap on top of it. - tabalun, on 06/23/2009, -0/+0So you can find the information on it on my search resource http://filesmixx.com contains extensive search base on video and audio to materials.
- kickarse, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1There's ntfs for dos professional which will... think it's from sysinternals
- atstriker2000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Also, just remembered, you can easily test the functionality for the ISO's that you create via VMware Workstation (for more flexablitiy, but must pay for) or VMware Player which is FREE (http://www.vmware.com/download/player/) which you would just mount the iso to it, and boot it.
Good stuff, and plenty of other appliances that are VERY useful. (IE. their browser appliance, which lets you browse the internet on a seperate OS, in other words, no tracks, no adware, no virius issues...)
VMware Browser Appliance linkage:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/browserapp.html
Or browse all of their appliances at:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/
Just wanted to share the goodness... - Odweaver, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The batcher download seems to be down, anyone know of a mirror for it?
- atstriker2000, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I totally agree with Lostboy, ubcd4win is what I used on my BartPE iso, good stuff, and if you go out and get all the plugins for it, it's even better!
It has full NFTS support, and you can add all the scsi drivers that you need to be able to support server hardware as well. So throw on some password recovery software, and you've got a great emergency cd for the Datacenter as well.
It's a very good tool set to have, and that's the main reason that I've posted so much about it here.
Sorry to the people that bust on my spelling or verbage, but in forums I type how I think, however good or bad that may be... - lostboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2if anyone finds this interesting they may find http://www.ubcd4win.com/ very interesting. It uses Bartpe builder again, but includes a great deal of useful system utilities and so is great as a rescue CD if you feel uncomfortable using linux because it's unfamiliar. People should use what they are used to, that way they end up making less mistakes. When you're resizing partitions that becomes quite important!
Out of the box ubcd4win supports networking and I VNC'd to my desktop machine and surfed the web while I ran some tools on the hard drive that I couldn't run from the system disk. Extremely useful and not to be missed if you enjoy looking after your computer. One particularly useful aspect for me are the disk imaging tools. I compressed the 10gig system disk of my laptop down to under 4gigs so I can burn it onto DVD and if my laptops windows partition does go ***** up it takes 10-15 minutes to restore the image.
Linux live CDs are excellent and extremely useful but not everyone is gonna be comfortable with it or know the first thing about it so a windows live CD is very much needed. Anyone who says that its not possible is just wrong. With UBCD you can even customize the appearance. - atstriker2000, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3I have been using and creating my own BartPE images for years, and it's EXTREMELY useful and powerful. There is nothing like being able to get local file access to a screwed up OS, be it from viri or Lusers, and being able to correct whatever's going on, defrag the drive (completely since the original OS isn't tying up the files), and or wiping the whole hard drive. That being said, I personally like the larger Live CD versions, since it's like having a big tool box with you at all times with all sorts of progs that you MIGHT need, but don't always. The 16mb is kewl, but I don't see alot of real world uses yet. Don't get me wrong, I love the research, and I might use it as my new base OS for the live cds that I make (have to try it first...), I just don't always understand what prompts people to go in this direction. I would actually go the other way and make a DVD Live disk with even more freeware tools on it, but that's my own perversion of the BartPE tweak.
You can't distribute the "compiled" ISO as a Torrent as you need the original WinXP or Win2k3 disk to create it, and you would be breaking copyrights by doing that in the same way that people sharing their WinXP ISO's (with cd keys) on P2P are breaking copyrights.
Can you play Quake3? You would have to try it, but you would need all your video drivers added into the OS, plus anything else that BartPE doesn't have included from XP / 2003, which, judging by the size of the final image, is quite a bit.
My 2 cents worth
/rant - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2If Piratebay doesn't have them, this place might:
http://bushtorrent.com/ - Nick22, on 10/12/2007, -13/+12"to make sure you compile it correctly."
ok.... - stokestack, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3OK, this "live CD" crap is becoming the new scourge of Digg, taking its place among Apple, Google, and PS3 posts.
- olliholliday, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3this is XP not DOS, RTFA
- BSherrod, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I'm with IHAVEISSUES a ready made torrent would be really helpful to use for testing purposes if someone tries this.
- osuchasenuts, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Live cd with NTFS write support?? If so I'm in.
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4"viri or Lusers"
Wow, yer leet!
Virii != a real word
The word is viruses. - draugen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1NO; no quake 3! quake 1 or 2 MAY work though. but there's no sound...
I fixed the DL link.. sorry! Latest batcher version is 1.19b. I've not had a chance to update the site recently. -
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