Bootable Windows XP Professional X64 Edition Cd W/SP2 Integrated

How To Make a Bootable Windows XP Professional X64 Edition Cd W/SP2 Integrated

Using IsoBuster V2.2 and MagicISO V5.4

Preface

I decided to write this "Dummies" tutorial after reading about the frustrations people were having with downloaded boot images that were not working, and with Nero that somehow managed to not write a bootable CD after a lot of hard work and customization. IsoBuster and MagicISO can put an end to that suffering because with IsoBuster a clean boot image can be obtained directly from your legitimate copy of X64 Edition, and MagicISO will write that disc so it's compliant with just about any reader that's bootable.

Preparation

1. You must download the Sp2 update (WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB914961-SP2-x64-ENU.exe) before continuing: Microsoft Download

2. Create a temp folder on your C: drive. Call it whatever you want but in this case I'm calling it "Temp" and we'll refer to the folder as C:\Temp throughout.

3. Create a second folder on your C: drive and name it "XP64" (ie. C:\XP64). This is where we'll extract our Cd contents.

4. Place the WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB914961-SP2-x64-ENU.exe file you downloaded into C:\Temp

Open IsoBuster

5. Open your XP Pro X64 Edition Cd in IsoBuster. You should see this image (click image for a larger view):


6. Highlight "Bootable Disk" in the Left Panel, then Right-Click on "Extract Microsoft Corporation.img" in the Right Panel and choose a folder to extract the image to: C:Temp


7. Right-Click "AX2PXFPP_EN" in the Left Panel and choose "Xtract AX2PXFPP_EN", then browse to and choose the C:\XP64 folder you made earlier. IsoBuster will extract all content of the Cd to a subfolder of XP64 called AX2PXFPP_EN.


8. Close IsoBuster.

9. Click on Start/Run and input this exactly: C:\Temp\WindowsServer2003.WindowsXP-KB914961-SP2-x64-ENU.exe /integrate:C:\XP64\AX2PXFPP_EN\ (it's best to copy and paste this information in the Run box since this blog format may not allow you to see the full line .. it will, however, copy and paste correctly).


10. Wait until integration has completed successfully. If you have errors check that your file is in the proper folder.

Open MagicISO

11. Open MagicISO and click on "File/New" and choose "Bootable CD/DVD Image".


12. In the popup menu choose "From bootable Image File", browse to C:\Temp and choose the "Microsoft Corporation.img" file which you extracted earlier.


13. Right-click on the generic Cd number and choose to rename the disc to "AX2PXFPP_EN" which is the original name of your bootable XP X64 Edition Cd.


14. Click on "View/Windows Explorer". Windows Explorer will open in the bottom half of MagicISO.


15. In Windows Explorer browse to the C:\XP64\AX2PXFPP_EN folder and choose everything in it. You can do this by left-clicking the top folder (AMD64), then hold the shift key down and left-click on the last file of the folder so that everything under AX2PXFPP_EN is highlighted.


16. With everything highlighted, and still holding the shift key down, drag the highlighted files and folders to the top right panel of MagicISO.


17. Close Windows Explorer in MagicISO: View/Windows Explorer (clicking it will uncheck the box).

Save Your Image

18. Now is probably a good time to save your image in MagicISO: File/Save As and browse to your C:\Temp folder. Name your ISO whatever you like. I named mine AX2PXFPP_EN.iso

Prepare to Burn

19. Click File/Properties to get to the properties menu of your iso.

20. In the popup menu look at the 3 images below and input your information so that it is identical to each of the Tabs shown. The Label items are not all that important, and "Volume Set" should be ignored (your volume set is good enough as it is, but the other tabs (ISO and Optimize) are critical. For the sake of continuity and justice to M$ you should perhaps enter the "MICROSOFT_CORPORATION" data under Publisher and "Data Preparer" since they were kind enough to charge you big bux to use their stuff and make updates so readily available that you are now forced to make your own slipstreamed cd ... but I digress. Here are the images. Make them your own.





21. Click on "OK" in each of the tabs, then on File/Save.

Burn the CD

21. Click on the burn icon on the far right of the Icon Toolbar.



22. In the menu that pops up be sure that "Mode 1" is selected as well as "Burn Proof" (if your burner supports that feature) and "Finalize CD". I would suggest burning at a moderate speed. That way you're sure to get a good read from a wide variety of cd readers which can be rather picky when in boot mode.

23. Click the "Burn it!" button and in a few minutes you should have a bootable Windows XP Professional X64 Edition Cd W/SP2 Integrated .. say that outloud five times fast ;) Congratulations and good luck! You'll want to save your bootable image file somewhere safe, but otherwise you can now delete the contents of your C:\Temp and C:\XP64 folders.

Consumer Protection

When Google studied a hundred thousand SATA and PATA hard drives recently (http://tinyurl.com/2yhblk) they found that 56% of drives with SMART technology failed to raise flags when they went south. Interesting because the sole purpose of SMART is to monitor the health of hard drives.

We've all seen hard drive manufacturers go through periods of unreliability. Some get out of the race when their reputation takes too huge a performance hit, but most just hang in there until they finally get it right or until they're bought out by other manufacturers.

A big disappointment currently is with motherboards. I don't see a lot of happy people with newer motherboards, not with Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, whatever. I do see lots and lots of complaints, especially with the lack of support which is sometimes atrocious. Don't like your motherboard? The answer seems to be "Buy a later version and you might get lucky".

Then there's the memory issue where people are being sold 4 gigs of memory only to find that current Intel architecture will use up to a gig of that memory for system allocation. A system might show 3.25 gigs of memory when 4 gigs is inserted no matter the OS and no matter if it's running 32 bit or 64 bit. And apparently there's very little that can be done to increase available memory. But the buyer isn't forewarned about the Intel memory glitch; he/she is just told this overpriced memory is needed to increase performance. When somebody complains they're not getting what they paid for, the standard excuse is that the memory shown runs in dual channel mode and that's a significant performance boost. Truth is as the manufacturer tells it, and the consumer has no recourse except to accept it and fume in futility.

So much for consumer protection.

Dummies Guide to Korporate Law

There are so many laws initiated by korporates today that it's almost impossible not to break one. I'm considering writing a guide because it's gotten to the point where people should be asking themselves, "What korporate laws have I broken today?" Did I download a free mp3, preview a movie over the internet, perhaps allow someone else to view the PPV event which I acquired to entertain myself alone? The guide might be called something like "Dummies Guide to Korporate Laws You Might Break Every Day" but maybe there's a copyright infringement somewhere in that title, so you see I need your help. I for one am pretty ignorant about how the legal systems of the world interpret the law for the benefit of the few. Since ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of "justice" it should behoove us all to have such a guide to help the korporations strike fear into the hearts of every citizen and to keep us on our toes, ever vigilant to the needs of the almighty makers of laws that somehow do not benefit us, the lowly, law-breaking consumer. So your advice and suggestions would be most welcome.

As an added flavor, I might also ask you to suggest better ways for korporate's to extort even more of our money in innovative, fetching campaigns such as adding a bonus charge to 911 calls. They could do that after asking the caller to agree to a $200 surcharge in order to expedite his/her emergency call. It's just a humble first suggestion.

Please help me out. You and I could all benefit from the endeavor.

Thanks