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This post of part of The Smorgasbord Tech Reviews series!

With all the people downgrading from Windows Vista to XP, I felt this was a pretty timely post. You can’t boot Windows XP from a floppy disc, but you can from a CD Rom if you need to reinstall or make a repair. Burning CD’s is so passe anymore – can’t you just boot Windows XP from a USB flash memory stick drive? Of course you can – if you know how!

What’s more – you can use applications you’ve installed on the flash drive as well to fix any PC problems you may have.

First – you’re going to need a program called PEBuilder – download it here. The PEBuilder Home page is here. PE Builder is “Pre-Installed Environment Builder” – basically think of it as a freeware way to build a “Windows” LiveCD (like Linux).

As the home page states it will give you:

• A complete Win32 environment with network support
• A GUI or graphical user interface (800×600)
• FAT/NTFS filesystem support
• You get the ability to:
• Do burn in testing with no installed OS
• Rescue files or boot a dead PC
• Perform Virus scan, remove trojans, fix problems, etc.

Microsoft already has a PE or Pre-Installed Environment utility – BUT, it’s only availble to big enterprise and OEM companies, AND it’s only command line (no GUI). Ok, now that you have to tool to build a PE, you need to get another tool to install that PE to a usb flash drive. So you need download PE to USB, a program that was specifically designed to use PEBuilder and install that PE to a flash drive.

Now I’m going to show you how to get this done in 5 easy steps:

1. Install PEBuilder
2. Copy your “i386” directory from your Windows XP Pro SP2 CD to a folder in the PE Builder directory called “BartPE”
3. Extract the PEtoUSB files to the PEBuilder folder
4. Run the PE to USB program and select “Enable Disk Format”, “Quick Format”, and “Enable File Copy”. For “Source Path” select the “BartPE” folder
5. REBOOT with USB flash drive and you will have a running Windows environment on a stick! (enable usb boot in bios if needed)

If you have something to add or a suggestion about building a Windows booting Flash drive – please, comment now!

Oh – and if by some chance you need a geeky new USB flash drive – then I can tell you some of the best deals are on eBay! Here are some usb flash memory drive auctions on eBay right now!