Make a Windows rescue kit

UBCD4Win is ‘bootable’. That means you can use it to start up your PC because it contains its own, stripped-down installation of Windows XP. This bypasses the PC’s hard disk, so it doesn’t matter if your usual XP installation is damaged, corrupted, or overrun with malicious software. And with UBCD4Win working from the ‘outside’ of your Windows installation, it’s perfect for curing such ailments.

For starters, the rescue kit contains numerous virus scanners and anti-spyware tools such as the popular AVG Free and Ad-Aware. Also included is a suite of software for recovering deleted files and emails, fixing Windows start-up problems and diagnosing hardware faults. For convenience, you also get a web browser, an email application, and a CD and DVD creation tool. In total, there are more than 150 programs, all free for personal, non-commercial use.

Out to launch
To install the builder, double-click the file you’ve just downloaded. This should be either on the desktop or in your usual downloads folder. There are numerous setup screens to work through but we won’t bore you by detailing every last one.

Just follow the onscreen instructions carefully, agreeing to the various licences for using the software that’s going to make up your rescue kit and accept all the defaults. On the final screen, ensure there’s a tick beside the box labelled ‘Launch UBCD4WinBuilder.exe’, then click Finish.

Now you’ll see the following message: ‘Search for Windows installation files?’ After popping your original Windows setup CD into your CD or DVD drive, click Yes. The action of inserting the CD will probably launch XP’s installation wizard, but you’re not interested in that, so just click its Exit button. Once the builder itself detects the CD, click OK

Building site
On the builder’s main screen, click Plugins. A list of all the toolkit’s programs will appear. Some offer the option to search for updates. For example, the definition files for the anti-virus and anti-spyware tools will have been revised since the builder was released, so here’s your chance to bring them up-to-date. Doing this is just a matter of highlighting the desired program and clicking Config. Everything else is automated. When you’ve finished, click Close.

Next, in the main screen’s ‘Media output’ panel, you need to specify the toolkit’s destination. Ultimately, we want to put our toolkit onto a USB memory key, so click None. This will save the toolkit’s files to the C:\ drive (found by double-clicking My Computer) in the folder called CUBCD4Win (there’s a folder in here called BartPE that holds the utility files) all ready for the project’s next stage.