Ultimate boot CD for Windows packs recovery, repair utilities

Many administrators prepare and keep on hand several disaster recovery tools in the event that a system cannot boot normally.

These tools could be something as simple as the Windows installation CD itself, which has the Recovery Console and can perform basic maintenance. Independent programmers have also created utilities that fit onto floppy disks, which can be booted and used for system recovery.

However, the tools on the Windows installation CD are limited in scope and variety, and there isn't much that can be squeezed onto a single 3.5-inch floppy. The new solution: Custom-built boot CDs crammed to the rim with freeware recovery and repair utilities.

One of the newest of these tools is the remarkable Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (or "UBCD4Win"). In fact, it's doubly remarkable because it doesn't run in DOS mode. It runs as a version of Windows, directly from the CD-ROM, and installs nothing on the host computer.

More than 50 freeware utilities are bundled on the UBCD, include two CD-burning applications for creating CDs from within the UBCD environment; disk- and partition-management and copying tools; defragmentation utilities (including DIRMS,); disk hardware diagnostics (including S.M.A.R.T.-reporting tools); compression/decompression apps; recovery/repair tools for various applications, including Outlook Express; spyware/adware/virus scanners/removers; network utilities (FTP, VNC, network scanners); CMOS management tools (including password recovery), and more. Utilities are continually added.

There are three caveats.

• The user himself must provide a licensed copy of Windows XP. This does not simply mean having a Windows XP CD lying around, but one with a spare license for it as well.
• Since using the UBCD4Win counts as creating a separate installation of Windows, the end user must have a license for it.
• The process for creating the CD isn't fully automated -- there's no single ISO image one can download. The user has to merge files from the XP installation CD with the UBCD's build files, but there's a tool for automating this part of the procedure. (Once the CD is built, of course, it can be imaged and re-used as needed with proper licensing.)

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Ultimate Boot CD for Windows can be found at http://www.ubcd4win.com/index.htm.

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[IMAGE]The top 10 tips of 2005
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Serdar Yegulalp is the editor of the Windows 2000 Power Users Newsletter. Check out his Windows 2000 blog for his latest advice and musings on the world of Windows network administrators -- please share your thoughts as well!

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