[AccessD] Network booting Windows XP

John,

Since you have the legal licenses, have you considered a boot from CD?
 You could create a Bart's Preinstall Environment disc (BartPE Disc). 
There is a method developed by Bart Lagerweij that allows you to
create a stripped down version of XP complete with all driver and
application support all on a bootable CD.  This is accomplished
legally, as long as you are not using the source copy of XP and the
created copy simultaneously.

A free copy of PE Builder can be found here: www.nu2.nu
A tutorial on the process can be found here:
http://www.maximumpc.com/how_to/reprint_2005-01-27.html

The only caveat in this route is that in order to thwart any attempt
to utilize this method as an illegal OS, you are limited to 6
processes and the machine reboots every 24 hours.  But if the CD is in
the drive, and your folding routine is in the startup folder...?  I'm
guessing that this approach to your problem might work...I've never
tested it.

Mark


On Fri, 11 Feb 2005 07:33:54 -0500, John W. Colby
<jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
> Well the whole point is to buy a very low cost MB with everything on it -
> video, usb, serial, hard disk controller, net, etc.  Nothing is going to
> change.  The lowest cost CD and hard drive I can find taken together run
> about $70-$80, hard drive by itself about $45-$50.  All the other components
> taken together (MB / Athlon64 CPU / 512 mb RAM / Case) run about $280.  So
> the hard disk by itself makes up some 16% of the system, not to mention
> setting it all up etc.  If I could set it all up then save the image to a
> LAN location, then have 1 or 100 systems use that boot image...
> 
> I could swear that large companies do this.  And I know for a fact that ALL
> motherboards these days have a "boot from LAN" option built into the BIOS.
> There is an entire standard designed to allow this.
> 
> It appears that no one here knows how to do it, I know I don't, and I
> haven't found anything (free) on the web to allow it for Windows, though I
> have for Linux.
> 
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> 
> Contribute your unused CPU cycles to a good cause:
> http://folding.stanford.edu/
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gustav Brock
> Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 6:22 AM
> To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] Network booting Windows XP
> 
> Hi John
> 
> This sounds what you were asking for.
> But I wonder if it is what you want; loading an image via a LAN must last
> "forever" and hardware must match the image exactly.
> 
> /gustav
> 
> >>> dejpolsys at hotmail.com 11-02-2005 04:57:46 >>>
> http://www.vci.com/downloads/files/Ardence_ThinClient.pdf
> 
> William Hindman
> 
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