Installing Windows XP & Windows 7 from USB

 Researching the topic of installing XP from USB, and after learning a lot from this and other forums,  Based on all the available knowledge, is it possible to install XP from USB using no third party tools, except what's available to me in a standard Windows 7 installation? I realise that there are now lots of good tools available online for a variety of installation scenarios, but there is something satisfying about managing to do this "out of the box".

The scenario. Available to me were: Legitimate Windows XP with SP1 setup CD.
Target computer: has 1 blank Harddisk and can boot from USB. Aim to install XP here. No CD drive.
"Work" computer: standard Windows 7 installation, used for preparation.
Blank 1 Gb USB stick.
The restriction was that I could only use whatever tools are included in Windows 7 on the Work machine. No third party applications. In addition, I aimed to make the fewest possible tweaks along the way.

The steps that worked successfully to install XP from USB, exactly as written, from the first to last step. Some additional remarks are at the end.

Steps 1 - 5 are performed on the Work computer.
Steps 6 - 10 are performed on the Target computer.

Step 1) Partition and format the USB stick in Windows 7, which makes it bootable:
Start Command Prompt, start diskpart.
Enter commands: select disk 2, clean, create partition primary, active
Exit diskpart, unplug and replug the stick.
Format the stick via Windows Explorer (I chose FAT32).
Note: the value in "select disk 2" depends on the number of harddisks and other USB storage devices you have! You have to check what value is appropriate for your system (use "list disk"). I have two Harddisks and disconnected all other USB storage devices, hence the value is 2 for me (numbered from 0).

Step 2) Copy contents of Windows XP with SP1 setup CD in whole to the USB stick.

Step 3) Copy these files from \I386 folder to \ on USB stick:
setupldr.bin -> bootmgr (rename), ntdetect.com, txtsetup.sif

Step 4) Edit \txtsetup.sif to add two lines in [SetupData] section:
BootPath = "\I386\"
SetupSourceDevice = "\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1"

Step 5) Use Notepad to create a file named boot.hdd at \ on USB stick with these two lines:
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP" /fastdetect

Step 6) Boot from the USB stick on the Target computer. This starts the text-mode portion of Setup.
Follow the instructions on-screen, creating/formatting a partition on the Harddisk as needed in the process. Make sure to install Windows XP in the first partition, in the WINDOWS directory.

Step 7) When Setup reboots, reboot from the USB stick again and enter Recovery Console. If you try to boot from the Harddisk at this point, you'll get a hal.dll error.

Step 8) Using the Recovery Console, rename c:\boot.ini to boot.bak. Copy \boot.hdd from USB stick to c:\boot.ini

Step 9) Reboot, this time from the Harddisk. This starts the first GUI portion of Setup. Proceed as normal, but you are asked for the location of various files several times along the way. Each time answer with D:\I386, where D is the drive letter of the USB stick at this point. Trial and error works here. Have to do this about 20 times total.

Step 10) When setup reboots again, reboot from the Harddisk. This is the last GUI portion of Setup. Proceed as normal.

Done! This process took me 61 minutes from start to finish, which included 30 minutes for copying the contents of the CD onto the USB stick. The process is non-destructive in the sense that it does not modify the contents of the USB stick in any way.

Remarks

 Using Windows 7, partitioning with diskpart and formatting via Windows Explorer is actually sufficient to create a bootable USB stick. The resulting stick will boot in most modern PCs, and a lot of older ones. When formatting, Windows 7 correctly enters drive number 80h in the BPB of the partition on a USB stick (unlike Windows XP, which enters 00h, leading to issues with bootability). However, creating a bootable USB stick is not always an easy or guaranteed process. It worked for me on my hardware, but your milage may vary.

Conventionally, setupldr.bin is renamed to ntldr, but I had to use bootmgr instead, because naturally the VBR code placed by Win 7 loads that one.

As is well-known, XP setup can be performed from a properly prepared local source on the USB stick, using $WIN_NT$.~BT/$WIN_NT$.~LS. What's less known is that setup can be booted and performed from *any* directory, using BootPath and SetupSourceDevice. These two settings are honoured if placed in txtsetup.sif in the current directory next to ntdetect.com. SetupSourceDevice overrides the need for a CD drive.

The value of SetupSourceDevice can be any valid NT device path. When booting from a USB stick, the stick normally gets assigned as \Device\Harddisk0. The fun thing is that other paths also work, for example "\GLOBAL??\D:", where D is the drive letter assigned to your USB stick when booting from it. (Bit of trial and error needed here). The trick is that all Win32 device paths are actually a subset of all NT device paths, attached under \GLOBAL??. Note that paths other than NT device paths don't work (such as ARC paths, or direct Win32 paths such as "D:" or "\\.\Physicaldisk0".

There is no need to prepare winnt.sif

The deal with having to prepare a boot.ini file in advance and copy it over using Recovery Console is because of the ARC path problem arising from booting from USB, which leads to the (in)famous hal.dll error. Sadly Recovery Console doesn't allow file editing, so the correct boot.ini has to be prepared in advance. This issue is well-documented, so just in brief:
When booting from USB under XP (and its setup), the USB stick is assigned multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0), and the internal harddisks are assigned multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1) onwards. When booting from the harddisk, it is of course assigned multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0). Since the setup was started by booting from USB, an incorrect boot.ini file is created on the harddisk (with a multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1) entry). In order to correct this and allow booting from the harddisk, the boot.ini file on the harddisk needs fixing.

10 Fast and Free Security Enhancements PC magazine.

Before you spend a dime on security, there are many precautions you can take that will protect you against the most common threats.

1. Check Windows Update and Office Update regularly (_http://office.microsoft.com/productupdates); have your Office CD ready. Windows Me, 2000, and XP users can configure automatic updates. Click on the Automatic Updates tab in the System control panel and choose the appropriate options.

2. Install a personal firewall. Both SyGate (_www.sygate.com) and ZoneAlarm (_www.zonelabs.com) offer free versions.


3. Install a free spyware blocker. Our Editors' Choice ("Spyware," April 22) was SpyBot Search & Destroy (_http://security.kolla.de). SpyBot is also paranoid and ruthless in hunting out tracking cookies.

4. Block pop-up spam messages in Windows NT, 2000, or XP by disabling the Windows Messenger service (this is unrelated to the instant messaging program). Open Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services and you'll see Messenger. Right-click and go to Properties. Set Start-up Type to Disabled and press the Stop button. Bye-bye, spam pop-ups! Any good firewall will also stop them.

5. Use strong passwords and change them periodically. Passwords should have at least seven characters; use letters and numbers and have at least one symbol. A decent example would be f8izKro@l. This will make it much harder for anyone to gain access to your accounts.

6. If you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, use the current version or one with the Outlook Security Update installed. The update and current versions patch numerous vulnerabilities.

7. Buy antivirus software and keep it up to date. If you're not willing to pay, try Grisoft AVG Free Edition (Grisoft Inc., w*w.grisoft.com). And doublecheck your AV with the free, online-only scanners available at w*w.pandasoftware.com/activescan and _http://housecall.trendmicro.com.

8. If you have a wireless network, turn on the security features: Use MAC filtering, turn off SSID broadcast, and even use WEP with the biggest key you can get. For more, check out our wireless section or see the expanded coverage in Your Unwired World in our next issue.

9. Join a respectable e-mail security list, such as the one found at our own Security Supersite at _http://security.ziffdavis.com, so that you learn about emerging threats quickly and can take proper precautions.

10. Be skeptical of things on the Internet. Don't assume that e-mail "From:" a particular person is actually from that person until you have further reason to believe it's that person. Don't assume that an attachment is what it says it is. Don't give out your password to anyone, even if that person claims to be from "support." 

by http://the-onelearning.blogspot.com/

Change the MAC address any os

Go to Start -> Control Panel. Double click on Network Connections (inside Network and Internet Connections category in Windows XP). The, right click on the active network connection with network adapter that you want to change the MAC address (normally Local Area Network or Wireless Network Connection) and click on Properties.
Above steps work in Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. For Windows Vista, access to NIC’s properties is from Control Panel -> Network and Internet -> Network and Sharing Center -> Manage Network Connections.
Alternatively, if you already know which network adapter that’s responsible for your network or Internet connection, go to Device Manager and open the properties dialog by double click on the NIC itself.
In the General tab, click on the Configure button.
Click on Advanced tab.
In the Property section, select and highlight Network Address or Locally Administered Address.
To the right, “Not Present” radio button is by default selected as value. Change the value by clicking on radio button for Value:, and then type in a new MAC address to assign to the NIC.


The MAC address consists of 6 pairs of numbers (0 – 9) and characters (A – F) combination. For example, 88-17-E8-90-E2-0A. When entering the new MAC value, omit the dash (-), for example 8817E890E20A.
Click OK when done.
To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
Reboot the computer if successful to make the change effective.
Note: To restore or reset back to original default MAC address, simply set back the option to “Not Present”.
Change the MAC Address of NIC in Windows via Registry
Open a command prompt.
Type the following command and hit Enter.
ipconfig /all
Record down the Description and the Physical Address (is MAC address) of the active network connection (discard those with Media Disconnected state).


For example, in figure above, Description is Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN and MAC address is in the format of 00-XX-XX-XX-XX-XX.
In the command prompt also, type the following command and hit Enter.
net config rdr
Record down the GUID for the MAC address for the active connection’s NIC which MAC address to be changed. The GUID is contained within the { and } brackets right in front of the MAC address as shown in figure below.


Type regedt32 or regedit in Start -> Run box or in Start Search for Windows Vista. Note: for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000, regedt32 must be used.
Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Expand the {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} tree, and there will be more sub-keys in the form of 0000, 0001, 0002 and so on.
Go through each sub-key starting from 0000, look for subkey that has DriverDesc value data that matches NIC description copied from step above, that want its MAC address to be changed. In most cases, it will be similar to the network adapter card name.
To verify that the subkey found is indeed a correct one, check the value of the NetCfgInstanceId, which should have the same value with the NIC’s GUID taken from step above.
Once a sub-key is matched to the network interface card that MAC address want to be spoofed, select and highlight the subkey. Right click on the sub-key (for example, 0000), then select New ->String Value. Name the new value name as NetworkAddress.
Note: If NetworkAddress REG_SZ registry key is already existed in the right pane, skip this step.
The double click on NetworkAddress and enter a new MAC address as its value data.


Note that the 12-digit MAC address in hexadecimal format, and should be entered without any dash (-). For example, 1A2B3C4D5E6F.
Reboot the system to make the new MAC address effective. Alternatively, if you don’t want to restart the system, try to disable and then re-enable the network adapter in Device Manager.
To verify the change of MAC address, go to command prompt, then type in one of the following commands:
ipconfig /all
net config rdr
Note: To restore or reset back to true original hardware burned-in MAC address, remove the NetworkAddress registry key that is been added.
Alternative: Third party tools and utilities to change the MAC address in Windows operating system are plenty, for example: SMAC (direct download link to smac20_setup.ex, supports Windows Vista, XP, 2003, 2000), Macshift (direct download link to macshift.zip, for Windows XP), BMAC (almost identical SMAC MAC changer clone by moorer-software.com), Mac MakeUp (direct download link tomacmakeup.zip, for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista), MadMACs (MAC Address Spoofing And Host Name Randomizing App For Windows, directly download MadMACs.zip), EtherChange (direct download link to etherchange.exe), and Technitium MAC Address Changer (for Windows 2000 / XP / Server 2003 / Vista / Server 2008).
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in Linux and *nix
To change your MAC address in Linux and most Unix-like (*nix) system, run the following script commands:
ifconfig down
ifconfig hw
ifconfig up
For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig eth0 down hw ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. First command brings down the network interface, second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again. Note that in some cases, to bring down and bring up the network interface, the following commands have to be used:
/etc/init.d/networking stop or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
/etc/init.d/networking start or /etc/init.d/network stop (in the case of Fedora Core 5)
Alternatively, for Fedora Code 5 Linux with Iproute2 tools installed, the following commands also can change the MAC address to spoofed version:
/etc/init.d/network stop
ip link set address 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F
/etc/init.d/network start
For example, “ip link set eth0 address 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”. To check whether the MAC address has been spoofed, use ip link ls eth0 or ip addr ls eth0 instead of using ifconfig eth0.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently Even After Reboot in Linux
Edit the ifcfg-eth0 file (or other similar file if you’re changing different interface), add the following variable line to the file:
MACADDR=12:34:56:78:90:ab
Then run service network restart to make the change effective immediately.
How to Make the Spoofed MAC Address Permanently on Restart in Debian
Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file and add in the following variable line to the appropriate section so that the MAC address is set when the network device is started.
hwaddress 02:01:02:03:04:08
For example, “hwaddress ether 02:01:02:03:04:08″.
Alternative: GNU Mac Changer (for Debian, Slackware, ArchLinux, Mandrake, Crux and other RPM-based distributions such as Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS, ASPLinux, SUSE Linux, OpenSUSE and etc.
How to Change MAC Address (MAC Spoofing) in BSD or FreeBSD
Issue the following commands in shell:
ifconfig down
ifconfig
ifconfig up
First command brings down the network interface (optional), second command change its MAC address while third command bring up the interface again (optional). For example, the command looks lik “ifconfig xl0 link 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F” or “ifconfig fxp0 ether 1A:2B:3C:4D:5E:6F”

WHAT IS MAC ADDRESS.

MAC address (Media Access Control address) is a quasi-unique identifier consists of a six byte number that attached to most network adapter card or network interface card (NIC). As such, all network cards, whether it’s of Ethernet NIC, Gigabit Ethernet NIC or wireless 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi or HiperLAN adapter, should have different MAC addresses, which also known as Ethernet Hardware Address (EHA) or adapter address.

In operating system, MAC address is often represented in 12-digit hexadecimal number. For example, 1A-2B-3C-4D-5E-6F. In practical usage, layer 2 MAC address is converted from layer 3 protocol addresses such as Internet Protocol (IP address) by ARP (Address Resolution Protocol), which then allowed each host to be uniquely identified and frames to be marked for specific hosts on broadcast networks, such as Ethernet. After translated (or when a host on LAN sends its MAC address to another machine which does n ot configured not to accept unrequested ARP replies on the network for preemptive caching), MAC address is cached on source PC ARP table for later use. Content of ARP table on each computer can be viewed by typingarp -a in Windows or arp in Linux. MAC address thus forms the basis of most of the layer 2 networking upon which higher OSI Layer protocols are built to produce complex, functioning networks.

There are many reasons or possibilities that an user may want to change the MAC address or a network adapter, which also known as MAC spoofing. For example, to bypass the MAC address filtering on firewall or router. The trick can be used to get pass the network access restriction by emulating a new unrestricted MAC address, or to gain access connection by spoof an authorized MAC address after sniffing the legitimate MAC address out of the air in MAC filtering Wi-Fi network.

Beside, hackers or enthusiasts also spoofing another host’s MAC address as their own in order to receive traffic packets not meant for them, although ARP poisoning technique is more commonly used. However, changing MAC address can still keep the real information from been detected and logged by various services such as IDS, firewall, DHCP server, wireless access points and etc, and is essential protect user’s privacy. MAC spoofing also potentially trigger a Denial of Service (DoS) attack by causing routing problem with duplicating MAC address exists in the network, especially those similar with gateway and AP router’s BSSID (Basic Service Set Identifier.)

Whatever the reason, it’s pretty easy to change the MAC address or perform MAC spoofing on most of today’s hardware, listed below. Actually, the original MAC address is burnt and imprinted to the network card, and cannot be changed. However, operating system can spoof as if there is different MAC address for the network interface card using tricks below.