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Is it possible to...


Magellan456

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Hello,

I was wondering if it was possible to create a CD with installed programs on it.

I'll explain.

I'd like to have a CD that could boot into Windows but inside it, there would be installed programs like antivirus, antispywares, cleaner... etc.

I don't want them to be installed on the computer but only usable from my CD.

I imagine a CD with a windows architecture.

Is that possible ? and does any of you knows where i could get information about how to do so ?

Thank you,

Magellan456

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three options....

Windows PE (which you can only get from a 3pack of XP)

BartPE (uses your XP CD to make a PE CD)

Windows Embedded (used in mobile devices and such.)

There is a seperate Windows PE forum to ask questions in. I suggest BartPE.

search for it in google.

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Another option is the knoppix boot cd, at present v3.6 akademie live! release. It's a userfriendly Linux with very fast booting and hundres of installed free software inkl. hardware diagnose, file recovery and also office programs.

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The best reason to use some form of PE is that it has reliable NTFS read/write access and you can do registry editing. I consider Linux NTFS writing to be not too reliable yet. If you want you can even multiboot PE with a smaller linux distro like SLAX and have the best of both worlds.

Cheers

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In fact I dont think the knoppix cd would be for windows(xp/2k/2k3) user usefull either.

I want to only point out the fourth way....(other than the three ways)

I use the BartPE(with many my selfmade plugins) + UBCD(v2.4) multiboot. Knoppix only for my hdd-installtion.

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Thank you, i already know about those. I probably didn't ask my question well enough because the answers you gave me are not the one i'm looking for.

I'll try to explain a little more clearly what i'm looking for.

I made a tech cd with all the utilities i use to diagnose/clean/repair computers. This is a normal cd ,made with Autoplay Media Studio that boots in windows. From the menu i made, i can install antivirus, anti-spywares, etc... like normal applications.

I sometimes had problems installing some applications because the system was too corrupted. There's my need. I'd like to create a cd-rom with an autorun.inf that could boot into windows. Don't misunderstand, i don't need a bootable cd to SEE windows, like bart's PE or some Live Linux cd. I already have these.

Do you follow my point ?

Instead of installing Kaspersky antivirus on the user's computer, i would have it installed on a cd-rom.

Somehow, it would be like running windows from a cd, on windows.

I hope it's more clear now.. I know that this request can be misunderstand easily, but i'm not looking after the easy answer (WinPE, Bart's PE, Knopix). ;) I didn't read any thread about such cd or never heard anything similar.

Have you any idea ?

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1. make registry snapshots before and after instaling a program on normal Win.

2. Save the difference in a .reg file

3. Put both program and .reg file on your CD

4. on other system, apply registry, start the program

This was a very generalized description, but if the registry keys contains some paths to files, or your app is installed in more than one folder (e.g. Program Files + My Documents/ Application Data) - the whole thing gets more complicated...

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I didn't think about this one Bobby100. That's a good idead! Like you said, to registry snapshot wouldn't work with all applications... but there's a way to work that around, i'm sure. Lets say that it's possible to use a variable like %cdrom% for the installed path in the reg key instead of a Hard Drive letter, i could modify the registry to look for %cdrom% instead of the default installation path.

The question is : Is it possible to put a variable in the registry that could always point to the cdrom i'm using ?

And another way could be that i create a windows architecture on my CD-Rom with it's own registry.

I know that the process could be very difficult because i don't want the installed programs to think that my CD is in fact the OS i'm working on.

You get it ? If, let's say, i try to do a registry cleanup with Reghealer installed on my cd, hmm... i'm not sure how good would be the results if i reference the CD registry to the cd-rom architecture (%cdrom%/windows/system32) for exemple.

I think the there wouldn't be any problem to use antivirus or antispywares as you can select the drives to scan. Besides that, i think that it would take a lot of time to modify the registry correctly... but maybe... maybe that's possible

Any ideas ?

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Answer for your question: NO. Unfortunately there is no possibility for user to defind a variable in the registry. But it is also not allways neccessary.

My solution is a tool called "unversal loader" which dose (basicly)following when you run it:

1. get the full path of the custom program to be excuted on cd or ramdisk.

2. modify the registry items reqired by the custom program and to be imported into system registry, parse the actural path into it and them import it to system.

3. copy diverse .dll/.ini/.cfg files into window system folder(if neccessary)

4. copy or extract/decompress the custom program to a ramdisk(if neccessary)

5. start the custom program with proper parameters/options.

All you need for prepairing is to install the custom program, capture the changes in system and registry.

The "unversal loader" in this form exists not jet, but it should be not diifficult to code.

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Magellan456, keep in mind, there are programs "liking" to write to their own configuration files (e.g. Panda Antivirus) during startup or execution process. In that case the only way is to copy them to HDD or RAMdrive, execute and delete later. And don't forget: virus definitions get old quickly!

:hello:

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The info with ramdisk I've already posted in my prev. post.

To get the most recent virus definition files, you can use the technology which would be usually used in the AV-Plugins for BartPE(WinPE). Mostly use the unix-util wget.exe to download the def. files "on-the-fly".

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