What’s Needed?

• a Windows XP install ISO image
• the LiveXP WinBuilder project

Windows 8 will include the new Windows To Go feature to allow you to take Windows with us wherever we go. There are a couple of downsides to this. First is the issue of this feature being available only to the Enterprise edition of Windows 8. And finally, as a secure measure, Windows To Go will not allow you to access the internal drives of the computer you’re using it on. For troubleshooting needs, this just won’t do.

Instead, we’ll just make our own using Windows XP and Windows 7. Booting to a Windows XP live environment will require less memory and can be usable on older computers. Using Windows 7 as the basis for your live environment will work better for modern computers.

Getting Started with the LiveXP project for WinBuilder

To build these live bootable environments, we’ll use the WinBuilder, a building engine used to create live media based on the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE). WinPE is a lightweight version of Windows normally used to deploy Windows to computers in an enterprise network. You’ve already used it and may not know it. WinPE is used for the graphical installer for Windows Vista and later.

WinBuilder is a very customizable and powerful tool. It can help you not only build your live media but also add additional software, customize your windows layout, and so much more. WinBuilder also comes with various pre-created projects to get you on your way to the task you want to complete. For this guide, you’ll be using the LiveXP 2012 project.

When using some versions of WinBuilder, you may want to be using Windows XP as WinBuilder does not work on well on Windows Vista and higher thanks to Windows’ User Access Control (UAC). Sometimes disabling UAC resolves this issue but it’s just easier to use Windows XP than dealing with the trouble of making your system a little more insecure. If can run XP in virtual machine, even better as it’ll give you a nice, clean environment.

Download and extract to the root of your hard drive. (Warning: LiveXP is a nearly 300 MB download.)

Before getting started, WinBuilder will need access to the Windows XP install files. Copy the files from your Windows XP install CD or ISO to a temporary folder on your computer. In this example, I’m storing the files in a folder called Sources within the LiveXP folder (C:LiveXPSources).

After doing so, launch WinBuilder.exe from the LiveXP folder. In the main window, click the Source button at the top, click the folder icon to the right of the Source directory drop-down menu, navigate to the folder you copied your install files to, and click OK. The path in the drop-down menu will update to your folder location.

At this point, there’s nothing more you need to do. To create a ISO of your bootable XP environment, click the Play button at the top of the window. After building the ISO file, WinBuilder will automatically launch the QEMU virtual machine to test your environment.

You now have a fully functional version of Windows XP to take with you on the go. The ISO file created can be found in the ISO folder of LiveXP. If you want to play with it more, you can load the ISO file into your bootable CD testing virtual machine you created for VirtualBox previously.

You can also now add the ISO image to SARDU and add it to your Ultimate System Recovery Drive. Move or Copy the LiveXP ISO image to the ISO folder in SARDU. If it isn’t already named properly, rename the ISO to LiveXP.iso. Launch SARDU and build your USB drive as noted in a previous guide.

You can use the default set up and be on your way or you can add your own touch to it. For me, I like having Windows be Windows and nothing more. So let’s do a little customization.

Customizing the LiveXP Environment

The main window of WinBuilder is made up of two sections: the left tree view showing various options that can be enabled / configured and the settings views for selected option on the right. Clicking + in the tree view expands the sections to reveal more options. Clicking an option brings up settings on right. Checking and unchecking options on left will either include or exclude it from build process.

The LiveXP Project for WinBuilder includes many customization options for you to configure.

Let’s start with something simple. First, I want to make the Windows Explorer operate like it normally does. To do so, expand the Basic folder in the options tree on the left and then expand the Shell folder. In the options that appear below Shell, click Explorer. In the settings on the right, uncheck Classic Start Menu. This will allow use of the new Start Panel introduced in XP. While here, go ahead and check Include Windows Picture and Fax Viewer so you’ll have a basic image viewer.

What if you don’t want something in your build at all? That’s easy to do. For example, I don’t want the customized Internet Explorer Favorites that’s included in the LiveXP project. To do that, navigate to Components, Core, then 1 System in the options tree on the left. One of the options that appears in the tree is IE Favorites. Uncheck the box to the left if IE Favorites to exclude it from your LiveXP environment.

Those are the basics of setting options in WinBuilder. Continue looking through the various options to see what else you want to change. At the end of this article, I will post the additional changes I’ve made to LiveXP to create a pure Windows XP environment.

Supporting Additional Hardware with Driver Packs

As Windows XP is an older version of Windows, it may not support the hardware you are troubleshooting. The biggest area that this would be a concern is storage devices. Without the proper hardware drivers, you live Windows environment may not be able to see any internal hard drives. To help us with this is DriverPacks.net, a web site dedicated to providing latest drivers for common modern hardware that can be integrated into Windows installation discs. We’ll be using it to make sure our bootable media is able to see modern storage devices.

Note: In order to download files from DriversPack, you will need a BitTorrent client. (Such as µTorrent or Tixati.)

At the DriversPack web site, click Downloads at top, then Get the latest under DriverPacks box on left. Under the Windows 2000/XP/2003 (x86) DriverPacks section, click download to right of Mass Storage. Finally, click green Download button on left side of page.

Once download complete, return to WinBuilder. Navigate to Drivers and then 4 Storage in the options tree on the left. Click Build DP Mass Storage in the list of options. In the settings panel on the right, click the Open Dps Path button. Move or Copy the DriversPack file you just downloaded into this folder. The next time you build your LiveXP environment, these additional hardware drivers will be included.

You should now have enough information to be able to continue customizing your LiveXP environment. It’s time for you to navigate through the many options and see what else you can change. In the next article, we’ll repeat this process to create a portable Windows environment based on Windows 7.

If you’re like me and wanting to keep a clean Windows experience, continue reading as I’ll go over the additional changes you need to make in WinBuilder.

Cleaning Up the Rest of LiveXP

The rest of this guide won’t touch too much on specific details as to why a setting is selected or changed. It’s all about changing settings and nothing more. Here are the settings you’ll need to change to make LiveXP look more like a basic Windows setup.

Adjusting the options in settings in the LiveXP project for WinBuilder can result in a cleaner live environment that mimics a normal installation of Windows XP.

Components / Tweaks
Uncheck the following options in the options tree:
• OEM Information
• Wallpaper

Components / Tweaks / Explorer shell – Tweaks and Settings
Menu properties tweaks
• Check Use XP style start menu and select Large icons
• Uncheck List my most recently opened documents

Windows Explorer Settings and Tweaks
• Uncheck Use modified toolbar settings

Folder settings
• Uncheck Display the full path in the title bar
• Uncheck Show Control Panel in My Computer

Other tweaks
•Uncheck Don’t display Username on StartMenu

Visual effects
•Uncheck Use a background image for each folder type

Set background color
• Red: 58
• Green: 110
• Blue: 165

Theme color scheme
• Select Classic colors scheme

The Explorer Shell option in the LiveXP Project has many options that can be tweaked.

Components / Tweaks / SetResolution
• Uncheck Add the following message to txtsetup.sif boot loading prompt
- or -
• Change message to Starting Windows…

Components / Tweaks / Other tweaks
• Uncheck Add shortcut of CMD.exe on desktop
• Uncheck Add open cmd window here to shell context menu
• Check Adjust quicklaunch size for number of icons

Apps
Uncheck the Apps folder in the options tree. Apps will be added in a later article.

Finish / 1 Optimizations
Uncheck the following options in the options tree:
• BootScreen

As you have seen, there are plenty of options that can be changed. These are just the basics to get closer to a cleaner look for your live XP environment. There are plenty of other options that can be changed. Look around and adjust them to your liking.

There’s just one problem: remembering to save your documents to SkyDrive. You may not have to worry about that by simply changing the location of where your Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos are stored.

First, if you haven’t already downloaded and installed SkyDrive, that’s the first thing you can do.

Home Folder icon in Windows 8

Next, open Windows Explorer (File Explorer in Windows 8). In your Favorites on the left, click Desktop. In the list/grid of files and folders that appears, open your home folder. (It’s the folder with the icon of a person with a folder behind it.) This will bring up a list/grid of the various folders for your documents, pictures, music, videos, and more.

To move one of these folders to your SkyDrive, right-click on a folder (in this example, the My Documents folder) and choose Properties from the menu that appears. In the Properties window, click the Location tab at the top. To move the folder, click the Move button near the center of the window.

A file browser will appear asking you to Select a Destination. Click the SkyDrive shortcut under Favorites in the Links bar on the left. If you have not already created a folder for the folder you’re moving, click the New Folder button at the top, name the folder, and then open it. (In this example, we’ll call it Documents since we’re moving our My Documents folder.) Then click the Select Folder button in the bottom-right.

A prompt will appear asking if in addition to changing the location of this folder if you would also like to move the files as well. Normally you will want to say Yes at this prompt.

If you had any files already in the old folder, not only will they be moved to the new folder, but they will also begin syncing to SkyDrive.

And that’s all there is to it. Repeat this process for the other system folders you want to sync with SkyDrive. This can be done to the following system folders:

• Contacts
• Desktop
• Downloads
• Favorites
• Links
• My Documents
• My Music
• My Pictures
• My Videos
• Saved Games
• Searches

Unless you’re paying for more storage, remember that you can only sync up to 7 GB of data to your SkyDrive. You may want to think twice about syncing folders like Downloads, My Music, and My Videos. This is a personal choice. Just remember those limitations.

Now that your files are on SkyDrive, you can access them not only on your desktop, but on the web, your smartphone, and Windows 8.

Keep in mind, if you use SkyDrive on other Windows computers, you will need to move your system folders on those other computers as well.

What’s Needed

• a USB Flash Drive (at least 16 GB in size)
• ISO images of Windows operating system installers (see previous article)
• SARDU multiboot CD or DVD and USB creator
• Oracle VM VirtualBox

As the number of tools we add increase, creating a sample ISO image just won’t do. It’s time to use our USB drive. Depending on the number of versions of Windows you plan on adding to your drive will determine the size of the drive you need. As drives are becoming fairly inexpensive for larger capacities, I would grab [amazon_link id="B005Y8C0H4" target="_blank" ]a USB Drive with at least 16 GB of storage[/amazon_link]. If you can find a USB 3.0 capable drive, even better.

Getting Windows ISO Images Ready for SARDU

Whereas we were able to have SARDU download software for us automatically earlier, SARDU cannot do the same for Windows as distributing Windows through that means is illegal. That should not be an issue for you as you should now have ISO images of all your Windows installer discs. (That’s if you followed the directions in the last guide.) In order for SARDU to know you want to add the Windows installers to your multiboot system, two steps must be followed.

First, move the ISO images of the Windows installers you created to the ISO folder within the location you installed SARDU. (C:SARDU in our example.) You will also need to rename your ISO images to follow a specific pattern. Of course, they must all in with the .iso extension. The beginning of their file names must begin as follows:

• Install_XP_Home – Windows XP Home Edition
• Install_XP_Pro – Windows XP Professional
• Install_XP_x64 – Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
• InstallVista – Windows Vista
• InstallWin7 – Windows 7
• InstallWin8 – Windows 8

The ISO images containing your Windows installers can be named anything as long as the file names begin with a specific pattern.

You can add anything else in between the file name and file extension. For example, I like adding the Service Pack number and architecture so I know which is which. For example, InstallVista_SP2_x86.iso tells me it’s the 32-bit version of the Windows Vista installer with Service Pack 2. The important thing is the file name begins as specified above.

Install SARDU Multiboot System to a USB Flash Drive

If you named your files correctly, SARDU should now be able to see all the Windows install ISO images. Verify by opening SARDU and clicking the Windows tab. At the bottom of the window, you will see the Windows Installers section.

If there is a checkmark to the right of the version of Windows you wanted to add to your installer, then you did everything correctly. If you don’t see your version of Windows checked, make sure you named the ISO file correctly and then restart SARDU.

You’re now ready to create your multiboot system on your USB Drive. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to format your USB flash drive in Windows Explorer using the FAT32 file system.

In SARDU, click the Search USB button in the upper-right of the window. Your USB Drive should appear in in drop-down menu below button. If not, click menu and select your drive. To start creating the system on the USB drive, click the Make a USB button below drop-down menu. You will see a warning asking if you are sure you want to write data to the drive. Click Yes. When the process is complete, the message SARDU for USB successfully created will appear in the status bar at the bottom of the window.

Testing a USB-based Multiboot System in VirtualBox

With your USB-based multiboot system created, the easiest way to test it out would be to use another computer. Sometimes, another computer isn’t available or you just want to be able to quickly test something. Just as we did with testing a virtual CD/DVD ISO image file, we’re going to use VirtualBox to test our bootable USB flash drive.

Where we could easily select an ISO image file in VirtualBox earlier, this process will be a little more complicated. In order for this to work, we have to fool VirtualBox into thinking our USB flash drive is a hard drive.

First, if you have any USB drives connected to your computer, I would recommend disconnecting them first. Next, connect the USB flash drive you’re using for your multiboot system to your computer.

Once the drive has been connected and recognized by windows, open Disk Management. Disk Management is a special tool used to manage advanced settings of the various drives in your computer. The location of Disk Management varies by the version of Windows you’re using. You’ll likely find in with the Administrative Tools section of your Control Panel.

In the Disk Management window, pay attention to the bottom half. This will provide a visual graphic of the drives in your computer and the various partitions on them. On the left, you’ll see the drives, labeled as a Disk, with a number next to them. Your primary hard drive is likely labeled as Disk 0 as computers normally start counting at zero. If this is the only hard drive in your computer, it’s very likely your USB Drive will be labeled as Disk 1. If you have more than one drive, scroll through the list on the bottom until you see your drive and remember the disk number associated it. For example, my computer has two hard drives (Disk 0 and Disk 1), so my USB Drive is Disk 2.

Using Disk Management to determine the disk number of your USB Drive.

Now open the Command Prompt. If you’re running Windows Vista or later, you will need to run the Command Prompt as an Administrator by right-clicking on its icon and choosing Run As Administrator. In the Command Prompt window, you will need to navigate to folder VirtualBox is installed in by typing cd %ProgramFiles%OracleVirtualBox.

Using the Command Prompt to create a Virtual Hard Drive out of our USB Flash Drive.

Next, you will need to type the following command:

Booting to USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox

That was a bit of work, but you can now boot to your USB Flash Drive in VirtualBox.

With your USB flash drive connected, start your bootable USB test virtual machine. Just like booting from an ISO image in VirtualBox, you should see the SARDU menu. In the list of options, a new one called Menu Windows live has been created. This is where you will find your Windows installers. Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, navigate down to this menu item and press Enter.

The various installers for Windows are stored in the Windows Live menu of the SARDU multiboot system.

Booting the Windows Vista, 7, and 8 Installers from SARDU

Testing a USB flash drive from a virtual machine isn’t that useful sometimes. In this case, if you try to boot into any of the installers for modern versions of Windows (Vista and later), you will receive an error message. Although we’re booting from a USB flash drive, these installers are thinking we’re booting from a hard drive. This miscommunication confuses the installer thus causing the error.

You will need an actual computer to test the installers for modern versions of Windows when booting from the USB flash drive.

Booting the Windows XP Installers from SARDU

The Windows XP install process consists of two parts: text-only and graphical install. The first part of the install boots into the text-based installer from the optical drive. The second part boots from the hard drive. In a normal setup, both parts of the install process still rely on having the install CD in the optical drive. (Modern versions of Windows copy its install files to the hard drive first.)

Since we’re not installing from a CD drive, we have to simulate this. When you launch the Windows XP installer from SARDU, you are greeted with another menu of options. To start the installer from the beginning, you’d select the First part of Windows XP setup menu item. After the installer finishes the text-based portion of the installer and the computer reboots, you would select the Second part of Windows XP setup menu item.

After all this work, you now have all your Windows installers on a single USB flash drive. No more carrying around a bunch of CDs and DVDs for you.

There is still much to do. Troubleshooting issues with Windows from Linux-based utilities is nice, but what if we could troubleshoot Windows within Windows? In the next article, you’ll be able to do just that by creating a portable live Windows environment on your USB flash drive.

Retailed/Boxed versions of Windows 8 Pro upgrade is currently available for pre-order at various outlets, including the Microsoft Store, and will go for $69.99. Microsoft will also make available a downloadable version of the upgrade on the day of release for $39.99. Unlike previous versions of Windows, anyone running Windows XP and higher will be able to upgrade.

Microsoft has also announced the price of its Windows 8 Pro Pack. For anyone running the core edition of Windows 8, you will be able to upgrade to the Pro Pack for $69.99. In additional to being upgraded to Windows 8 Pro, the Pro Pack also includes Windows Media Center.

Popular online electronics site NewEgg is also listing the various OEM versions of Windows 8 that will be available. The core edition of Windows 8 will run for $99.99 while Windows 8 Pro will cost $139.99.

It would appear Microsoft does not intend to sell a retail/boxed edition of Windows 8 core upgrade as pricing for that piece of software is not listed anywhere. With a $40 downloadable upgrade to Pro, Microsoft may have deemed it unnecessary.

Also absent are retail/boxed versions of a full install of Windows 8. The thinking here may be Microsoft believes you’ll likely get Windows 8 on the computer you’re buying or if you’re building your own computer, you’ll be purchasing the OEM edition.

Thanks to SARDU, we can combine just about every version of Windows onto a single USB drive saving us plenty of headaches. But before we can consolidate our installers onto a single drive, we must first consolidate the various editions of Windows into a single disc.

What’s Needed?

• A Windows XP Home Edition, XP Professional, Vista, 7, and/or 8 install disc
• ImgBurn (available from imgburn.com)
• WinAIO Maker Professional (available from Josh Cell Softwares)
• Oracle VM VirtualBox (available from virtualbox.org)

Creating an ISO Image of an existing CD or DVD

When creating our ultimate system recovery drive, the SARDU application is using the virtual CD/DVD ISO image files as a starting point for each system you want to add to your drive. In order to be able to install Windows from our drive, we must take our CDs and DVDs and create these ISO images from them. To do so, we will use the disc manipulation ImgBurn program.

Download and install the ImgBurn program onto your computer.

Note: during the installation process, you’ll be asked to install the Ask.com Toolbar. Although I enjoy supporting free software, the use of browser toolbars are intrusive and just bog down the browsing experience. I would recommend choosing not to install the toolbar by unchecking the boxes.

After the installation is complete, launch ImgBurn. The landing screen of ImgBurn will ask you the action you would like to take. To create an ISO, select Create image from disc.

Most of the options you will need to focus on will be on the left side of the window. From the Source drop-down menu, select your optical drive. In the Destination section, click the folder icon on the right to give the ISO image a name and to select a location to save the file.

To start creating the ISO image, click the image of the CD to File icon at the bottom of the window. Depending on the speed of your computer and optical drive, creating an image shouldn’t take any more than five minutes. (A jaunty little tune will let you know when the process is complete.)

Repeat this process for each of your Windows install discs as we’ll need them in the steps ahead.

Creating All-in-One Installer for modern versions of Windows

After Windows XP, Microsoft felt a version of Windows was needed for every demographic known to mankind. Starting with Vista, we got Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Windows. (All in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.) Just thinking about all those versions is a headache.

What Microsoft was hush-hush about is that these modern versions of Windows actually contained every edition (for that architecture) on every disc. This was easily noticeable in Windows Vista by not entering a Product Key during the installation process.

By not entering a Product Key during the installation of Windows Vista, you are given the option to install any edition of Vista. (You will still need the Product Key for that edition.)

Starting with Windows 7, Microsoft did try to lock this down a little more but that was easily circumvented by deleting a file from the installation media. Even then, you still only have access to the version of Windows for that installation media’s architecture.

To overcome this, you could obtain this in certain ways. Instead, we’re going to make the installer ourselves using WinAIO Maker Professional.

Before you can make the all-in-one disc, you will need to create ISO images of both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows version you want to make an installer out of. (The OEM version is preferred over the Retail version.) To make the installer, WinAIO Maker includes a tool that will automatically create the all-in-one installer for you without much work.

After downloading and extracting WinAIO Maker to your hard drive, launch WinAIO.exe. In the main window of WinAIO, click AutoISO in bottom-right. First, select a folder to store all the files needed to make the installer by clicking the folder icon to the right of the Select folder to work with ISOs field. Next, click the icon to the right of the Select exact x86 ISO field to select the ISO file for the 32-bit version of the Windows installer you’ll be using. Do the same for the 64-bit version of Windows as well by clicking the icon to the right of the Select exact x64 ISO field as well. Finally, if making Windows 7 all-in-one installation disc, check the box labeled Enable x64 recovery mode. This will help you recover a 64-bit version of Windows if needed.

With everything set, you can now click the Start Compilation button. Once complete, file called Windows AIO Image.iso will be saved to ISO folder selected earlier.

You could make an All-in-One installer that includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vista, but the installer will exceed the 4 GB file size limit of the FAT32 file system. Since we’re making these all-in-one installers for use with our system recovery drive, this won’t be possible. So, you will have to decide which architecture you want: 32-bit or 64-bit. This is a decision you will need to make. Considering that Vista was the first consumer orientated version of Windows to support 64-bt processors, I’d go with the 32-bit version.

Just as we did with your SARUD ISO image from a previous article, you will want to test your new all-in-one installer ISO image in VirtualBox. Since modern version of Windows are a little more memory hungry, you will need to adjust your virtual machine’s memory size to at least 512 MB or will get insufficient RAM error. You can find this in the System option within your virtual machine’s settings.

If you attempt to install Windows without at least 512 MB of RAM, you may receive an error during startup.

Don’t forget to update your Storage settings to point to the Windows AIO Image.iso file created by WinAIO. After making setting changes, click OK in the Settings window to save your changes and then start your virtual machine.

Go through the normal Windows installation process. During the process, you will now see an option to install just about every edition of Windows available for that version, including 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Once verified, you can close the virtual machine.

As it becomes available to the general public, you should be able to follow the same process with Windows 8.

Before we can add all our Windows Installers to our multiboot system, we have a little more work to do to be able to test everything. This will be covered in the next part of this guide.

You can ease up on these notifications by making a simple adjustment in your Google+ settings.

Some Google+ notifications may not be as important as others.

To change who you receive notifications from, click the Gear icon near the top of Google+ and choose Settings from the menu that appears. On the Google+ Account Settings page, navigate to the Who can interact with you and your posts section. (It’s a the top of the page.) To the right of Who can send you notifications?, click the drop-down menu to choose the circle or circles that can notify you.

You can select from the list of default options or use the Custom option to select specific circles or people. Changes are saved instantly.

Once this has been set, notifications will only come from those selected circles.

In this article, we’re going to resolve that issue by using the more feature rich VirtualBox virtual machine program.

What’s Needed

• Oracle VM VirtualBox (available from virtualbox.org)
• SARDU multiboot system ISO image (from previous part of this guide)

Installing VirtualBox

To begin, you will need to download two files from the VirtualBox web site: the VirtualBox platform package for your operating system and the VirtualBox Extension Pack. Once you’ve downloaded both files, run the VirtualBox installer. During the installation of VirtualBox, your network connection will be interrupted. You may also prompted to agree to Windows Security messages to install the necessary virtual hardware drivers needed for VirtualBox to function.

Once the installation is complete, VirtualBox will launch. Exit VirtualBox for the time being. Next, open the VirtualBox Extension Pack you downloaded earlier. The VirtualBox Extension Pack adds additional functionality (such as support for USB 2.0) that could not be included with the main program’s install file.

Click the Install button in the dialog box that appears. Next, scroll to the bottom of the license agreement that appears and click I Agree. A message will appear informing you the Extension Pack was installed.

VirtualBox will ask if you are sure you want to install the Extension Pack for VirtualBox.

Creating a Virtual Machine

Whereas QEMU in SARDU was set up for us without any input, VirtualBox gives us full control on how we want our virtual machine to work. This includes what system we want to emulate, how much memory we want to use, and even create virtual hard drives. We’re going to create a basic environment for testing.

If it is not already open, launch VirtualBox. At the main window, click the New button in the toolbar at the top.

The first step asks that we give our virtual machine a name. In this example, we will call this Bootable CD Test. VirtualBox normally tries to auto-detect what operating system our virtual machine will run by the name we give it. It’s not able to tell by our name, so the Type and Version menus default to Other. For this test, that is okay. Click Next to continue.

Next, we need to tell VirtualBox how much memory (RAM) we want to use for our virtual machine. Naturally, you cannot exceed the total amount of memory you have in your computer. A safe bet is no more than half of the amount of RAM you have. At a bare minimum, I would use at least 128 MB of memory. Adjust the slider as necessary (or enter the number in the field on the right) and click Next to continue.

Now we’ll need to create a virtual hard drive. (Technically, we don’t need one for our tests, but let’s go through the motions so you know what to do.) Select Create a virtual drive now from the list of options and click Create.

This will launch the Create Virtual Hard Drive wizard. Keep the hard drive file type as VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and click Next to continue.

The next question asks how you want to store the virtual hard drive file. Using a dynamically allocated file (the recommended method) will only use up the actual amount of space being used by the virtual hard drive. A fixed size will create a file sized in the amount specified in the next step not matter how much data is being used by the virtual drive. Select an option and click Next.

Finally, you will be asked to give your virtual hard drive a name and indicate how large of a drive you want. I recommend keeping the default file name. Since we’re not actually installing anything to the virtual hard drive, you can keep the default size. Otherwise, use the slider to adjust to the size you want or use the input field to the right. Click Create to create your virtual drive and to finish creating your virtual machine.

Booting from an ISO image

Now that you have your virtual machine set up, you’ll need to test it as well as ensuring you can still boot your ISO image you created earlier.

In VirtualBox, highlight the Bootable CD Test virtual machine you created and click the Settings button at top. In the Settings window, click Storage in the categories on the left. In the Storage Tree in the center of the window, click Empty under IDE Controller. On the far right side of the window, click the CD icon to right of CD/DVD Drive drop-down menu and select Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file… from the menu that appears. Navigate to where you saved your SARDU ISO image from the previous article, select it, and click Open.

Back at the Settings window, you will now see your image listed in the Storage Tree in the center as well as information about the image on the right. As this is a Live CD, check the Live CD/DVD box. Click OK to save the settings.

Back at the list of virtual machines, click Start in the toolbar at the top to launch your sample multiboot system. Just as we say when using QEMU, you will soon see the main SARDU menu.

The SARDU multiboot system ISO image loaded in VirtualBox

Like with QEMU, after booting into a piece of software, the only way to get back to the main menu most of the time is to restart the virtual machine. To do so in VirtualBox, click Machine menu at the top and select Reset. To shut down the machine, click the Close button on the window, select Power off the machine in the dialog that appears, and click OK.

And just like that, you now are able to test your multiboot systems in a far more powerful virtual machine program. As we move forward, you will need this additional power as the systems we will be using will need it.

Is what a D-List celebrity had for lunch really that important to show up front and center? Probably not. Banish these type of profiles from your main Timeline without losing the ability to know what you favorite known personalities and web sites are up to by using Lists.

Normally on Twitter, if you want to see the constant stream of updates from someone’s profile, you would Follow them. This means anything that person has to say will show up on your main Timeline on the Twitter web site and any Twitter apps. What you’re not told is that you don’t have to follow these people and junk up your timeline. You can still get these updates just fine by doing the following.

Creating a List

To create a list, click the Gear icon at the top of Twitter and select Lists from the menu that appears. On the Lists screen, click the Create list button. A dialog box will appear. Here, you can give your list a name, a description of the list (optional), and whether the list should be Public or Private.

Why would Twitter give you this Privacy option? There may be some instances where you’re not exactly proud of who you’re following on Twitter and would rather not have your friends know. That’s when you’d set your list to Private. The advantage of making your list Public is that if you make a list full of Twitter accounts that others find interesting, those others can follow your list.

After you’ve entered all the necessary information, click the Save List button at the bottom of the dialog.

Adding and Remove Users to List

Now that you have a list, let’s add some profiles to it. There are two ways you can do this.

One would be to visit the profile you want to add to a list, click the Person icon just to the left of the Follow button, and choose Add or remove from lists… from the menu that appears. A dialog will appear asking which list to add the profile. To select a list, check the box next to the list or lists. That’s it. The changes are saved immediately.

Another way would be to click on a Twitter username anywhere on the Twitter web site, click the Person icon that appears in the mini-profile view that appears, and select Add or remove from lists…. Again, check the box to the left of the list or lists you want to add the profile to in the dialog that appears.

View a List

Viewing your lists follows the same directions as if you were creating a list. From the Gear menu at the top of the Twitter and select Lists. On the Lists screen, click the name of the list you want to view.

Viewing a List on the Twitter web site.

Delete a List

Deleting a list is fairly easy. Visit any of your lists and click the Delete button on the right of the list page.

Like a lot of us, Davide Costa must have found this not just annoying by counterproductive. He did something about it and created SARDU, a multiboot all-in-one system media creator.

What’s Needed

• SARDU multiboot CD or DVD and USB creator (available from sarducd.it)

Navigating SARDU

Getting started with SARDU is fairly easy. Download SARDU from its web site by clicking the download link located at the bottom of the Downloads page. Open the downloaded ZIP file and extract the contents into a subfolder in the root of your hard drive. In this example, it’ll be extracted to C:SARDU. In this subfolder, you will need to open either sardu.exe if you are using a 32-bit version of Windows or sardu_x64.exe if you’re running a 64-bit version of Windows. (Use sardu.exe if you’re unsure of which version you have.)

The main window of SARDU is divided into categories, including tabs for the built-in downloader and build log (Report).

There are four areas to pay attention to in SARDU. The first is the row of tabs at the top. SARDU divides the supported systems and utilities into categories: Antivirus, Utility, Linux, and Windows. There are also two tabs to access the built-in downloader as well as a Report tab to monitor the build process.

The next section to pay attention to is just below the tab bar. This section lists the various pieces of software supported by SARDU. Clicking on the name of the system or utility will either give you the option to download it or take you to a web page where you can manually download it.

Select software can be downloaded directly from SARDU.

To the right of the button are checkboxes. A greyed out checkbox means that piece of software has not been downloaded or made available to SARDU. If the box is checked, it means the software is available to SARDU and will be included in your multi-system media. If you don’t want that piece of software include, uncheck the box.

In the bottom-right of SARDU is a meter to inform you how much data is being used. Keep an eye on this meter as you don’t want it to go over the size of your USB drive.

In actuality, this meter is only looking at the size of the different software you’ve included in SARDU. When the build process is complete, the amount of space used will be smaller than what the meter displays. As a rule of thumb, you will still want to keep this number lower than the size of your USB drive as we will make use of that free space later.

Finally, in the upper-right of SARDU are your build buttons. The top button will build your multiboot system to a USB drive (the preferred method) while the bottom button will create an ISO image for use with a recordable CD or DVD.

Creating a basic multiboot system in SARDU

Since this is the first time you’re using SARDU, we’re going to start by making a very basic multi-system media using the built-in downloader.

Let’s start with the Antivirus tab. Click the button labeled AVG Rescue. A dialog box will appear asking if you want to download the software (as shown above). Click Yes. A notification will appear informing you how to access the built-in download manager. If you want to see this reminder in the future, click Yes.

SARDU reminds you that you must manually start the download manager after choosing software to download.

We need to beef up our multiboot system with some more software. Repeat the above steps for GParted (in Utility tab) and Puppy Linux (in Linux tab).

Now that you’ve selected some software to include, click the Downloader tab. You will see a list of the software you’ve selected to download. You can adjust the number of simultaneous downloads using the input box in the upper-right. If you’re on limited bandwidth, you may want to set this to 1 instead of the default 5.

The built-in downloader in SARDU allows you to download select software from within the program.

If you change your mind and wish to remove some software from the downloader, there’s no way to individually remove software from this list. The only option is to click the Clear button at the top to remove all selected software.

Once you’re ready, click START to begin downloading. You will not receive a notification when downloading as complete. Your only indication is that there will no longer be any software listed in the downloader.

Now that we have the software we want, it’s time to build our multiboot system. As we’re just trying out SARDU for the first time, we’re going to keep this simple and only create a ISO image. An ISO image can be thought of as a virtual CD or DVD that has its contents stored into a single file. ISO images are also a great way to back up your existing CDs and DVDs. (That will be covered in another article.)

To create the ISO image, click the CD/DVD icon on the right-side of the SARDU window. A Browse window will appear asking where you would like to save the image. Pick a location on your computer and click OK at the bottom. (Remember this location as we will need it later.) In this example, it’ll be saved to the Desktop.

Building the multiboot system in SARDU.

SARDU will now start building your multiboot system. This includes extracting the contents of the software you downloaded earlier, creating the menu system to be able to boot into the various software, and saving it all into an ISO image. Depending on the speed of your computer will determine how long this process will take. Once down, you will see the message SARDU for ISO successfully created in the status bar at the bottom of the SARDU window.

Now that we have our multiboot system built into this virtual CD/DVD file, how do we test it? A virtual machine will be used to perform that test and it’s built right into SARDU. Just like how an ISO is a virtual CD/DVD, a virtual machine is a program that acts like a fully functional computer. (This too will be covered more in a later article.)

SARDU uses the virtual machine software called QEMU. QEMU is a very basic emulator and that’s all we need. To start it up, click the Qemu menu at the top of the SARDU window and select Test ISO. Navigate to the location you chose to save your ISO earlier using the Choose File dialog that appears. By default, the name of the ISO image is sardu.iso. Once you’ve found it, click Open to launch the emulator.

Loading the SARDU Multiboot System in the QEMU virtual machine.

A window will appear displaying the SARDU menu. This is exactly what you would see if you were to boot this on a regular computer. Much like the SARDU program, the software is split into various menus. Use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate the menu. Pressing Enter will select the highlighted menu option. To return to the main menu from one of the submenus, highlight <==Back using the arrow keys and press Enter.

Once you’ve booted into one of the systems you’ve included in your ISO, there is no easy way to get back to the main menu. The only thing you can do is click the Close button in the upper-right of the QEMU window just like any other program. Once you’ve done that, load the ISO in QEMU again using the steps above.

Congrats! You’ve created a very basic multiboot system using SARDU! At this point, I highly recommend playing around with SARDU some more using the information you’ve gathered from this article. Try adding some additional software. Remove software you don’t want. Create more ISO images and test them out.

Let’s face it. This is a VERY basic system that isn’t going to do much for you. Don’t worry. This is just the beginning step in creating the Ultimate System Recovery Drive. There is still a lot to cover, including adding Windows installer discs, making a bootable copy of Windows, and cleaning up the menus to look a little nicer.

I no longer have to remember to do this thanks to Windows 8′s live tiles and the Trackage app.

Trackage is a free app used to track packages from various delivery services. It offers a very simple design that follows user interface patterns of Metro (Windows Store) apps nicely. This shouldn’t be too surprising as the app was developed at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center, a research campus out in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Trackage does a great job of keeping with the design patterns you would find in other apps for Windows 8.

Adding a package to Trackage is no different than many other Metro apps. Bring up the App Bar and tap Add. In the pane that appears, you can enter the tracking number of your package as well as give it a name to help you remember what it is.

Package tiles are displayed in the color of carrier allowing for easy identification (as shown in the screenshot above). When you have packages listed in Trackage, bringing up the app bar will give you additional options, including change the way in which packages are grouped/sorted.

Clicking one of the package tiles will display detailed tracking information for that package. The delivery history is displayed in a hanging tag view with the most recent details showing first. Swiping left will reveal the past statuses along with the origin of the package. Additional details like the package’s tracking number and when the status was last updated can be found at the bottom.

Viewing the delivery history of a package.

Trackage does include live tile support. It will display the number of packages that have not been delivered while rotating through a list of tracking numbers or and its status.

If you only want to see the status of specific packages, you can pin individual packages to the Start screen. These package-specific tiles will display the status of the package, the carrier, and the estimated delivery time.

Trackage includes live tile support as well as the option to pin individual packages to the Start screen.

Although Trackage is simple and easy to use, it isn’t flawless.

At the time of writing, Trackage only supports FedEx, UPS, USPS, and LaserShip. It would have been nice to see some additional carriers (such as DHL) or even support for our friends to the north (Canada Post).

It also isn’t able to sync your packages to other computers running Windows 8. If you’re using Windows 8 on multiple computers, this can be rather annoying as you would have to manually enter your package information on each computer. Turns out I’m wrong on this. Trackage is in fact able to sync your packages across devices. During the initial testing of the app, it did not do this for some reason. After getting a comment from Rishabh on this, I checked again and did in fact see my packages synced across devices. As the Rishabh notes, you will need to be signed into the same Microsoft account on the other devices.

I’m sure some people will be disappoint by the lack of a map as well. Personally, this isn’t that big of a deal, but if you’re the type that likes to visually see the status of your package, this won’t be the app for you.

Like

• Follows Metro-style design beautifully
• Live Tile support, displaying a rotating list of packages being delivered
• Ability to pin status of individual packages to Start screen
• Simple and no frills, display just the right amount of information needed
• Syncing of packages across other Windows 8 devices

Dislike

• Doesn’t sync packages to other Windows 8 computers
• Limited carrier support

If you’re looking for a basic package tracker for Windows 8, Trackage is definitely one to install. Design-wise, it better looking than the other tracking app currently available in the Windows Store and cheaper too (Free compared to $2.99). It offers a very simple interface and gives you only the information you need.