Building Windows 7 Live DVD

[MohamedYousri]

Hi all,

I want to build a DVD with self-boot windows 7 like Ubuntu and Windows XP at the Hiren's BootCD

If there is any tutorial show how to build Live Windows 7 DVD please guide me to it ...

Thanks for your time...

 

[Night Hawk]

The closest thing to a live cd would be a custom install of 7 onto a VHD(Virtual Hard Disk) since Windows is not a live for cd type OS to begin with. When looking at any Linux distro or most with some exceptions those also come in two forms live and install to drive.

For the beta and RC builds seen last year prior to the retail release there was one app for a portable to usb flash drive type install available using the Oracle Portable Virtual Box. As a rule however the Windows installer will not install by way of usb and only the installation disk will work when booting live from that.

 

[gregrocker]

The Windows 7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD is of course the place to start for non-booting Win7. It also has a little-known ability to easily copy files from unbootable Win7 using this method: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html

Other free tools we use here a lot are Paragon Rescue CD which allows you to recover deleted partitions and files, and correct boot errors including slipped drive letter which sometimes happens during imaging/cloning.

Most bootable AV's can be run from this CD: FREE Bootable AntiVirus Rescue CDs Download List

And partitioning can be recovered, adjusted and reconfigured from boot using the best Partitioning tool for Win7, free Partition Wizard bootable CD. We have used this hundreds of times to delete/move/fix/resize partitioning, mark partitions Active/Inactive, convert to Primary/Logical and then start it up again by booting the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD to run Startup Repair.

So far no one has put these ideal Win7 tools together on a single CD for public circulation, probably because of various permissions required. SIW2 is the forums expert on doing this.

 

[Night Hawk]

He's not looking for any live collection of repair tools but a live version of 7 the OS like you would see with a live distro like ubuntu, Puppy, Knoppix, Zenwalk, Mint, SUSe, or any one of a number of others on that concept for being a totally portable OS.

The one suggestion someone received lately for running another OS Live from a flash drive however was for a virtual machine run using the Portable Virtual Box where the OS is still installed to a vhd while the program and vhd are stored on a usb flash drive.

That was for someone wanting an older version or a distro available while not seeing anything installed directly onto a host machine mainly working at a repair shop. This would be the boot from or run flash drive program install while booted in Windows on a host pc without install VBox directly. The program files and main folder stay on the flash drive once downloaded and unpacked.