How to run Windows XP from a USB stick

Recent days, there are so many Linux comes with live CDs. This is an alternative way for those who doesn’t want to install Linux on their hard drive. The live CD also become a problem solver when the system wont boot up or something happened with the system & you may rescue the files with CD. Beside the CDs, one of merely known Linux named DSL are comes with damn live USB! Note that this method required a computer which have ability to boot from USB devices.

By the chance, I heard something about Windows XP live in a USB flash disk. This is much interesting for me & would like to tried it. In a seconds, there was a secure link referred to the download page from Google. It size’s about 54MB & the link are here.

After it had completely downloaded, the packages are being extracted with WinRAR ~ since it is compressed with RAR format somehow. Finally, there are 7 files extracted from it. The first 2 files are the manual in Germany & Russian language. You might not found the English documentation because bartPE are seems developed by a Germany. First of all, we need to provide a USB stick with minimal size of 256MB. Then, make a fresh quick format with hpusbfw.exe tool includes in the packages. See the picture below.

After the format process done, reboot the system & make sure to activate the USB boot sequence from BIOS ~ while the USB disk are still plugged in. Let the computer booted from it & it will displayed a boot process in the monitor. The boot processes are taking much times depend upon the USB storage speed, so it would be great if you also preparing a coffee & a cigarette during waiting the desktop showing up.

The default desktop background is covered by dark bartPE pictures. In the left corner are showing up a “Go” button ~ representing a Start button in a real Windows. Have a click on it, it will raise a list of simple menu pointing to the default applications such as Windows Wordpad, the Calculator program, Paint image editor & a file manager called A43 replacing the Windows Explorer instead.

Note that this USB live also equipped with the fully functionality of command prompt. From the picture below, it’s DOS are actually come from a real Windows XP.

To view the detailed system information, take a tour to About menu. It will displayed a core simple information likes the system environment & other embedded programs.

Look at the picture below again, an About link from Paint programs shows you the exactly same as the About you might found in a real Windows. However, it is a Germany entirely. Doesn’t have to confused with it.

Although it has great advantages, eg: to rescue the system, it’s legality to use is being asked. This one link from several address pages are showing about the proprietary law legality. For me, it might be fine as long as the needed are still in a right condition. Have a nice mobility with it.