[Windows 8 Development and Hacking] PYCON:
Hello to all ...

I have received many requests from some other forum users with whom I collaborate x and I am here today to explain how I solve a problem that does not yet seemed to have a solution ...

I WANTED TO INSTALL WINDOWS 8 ON A USB KEY AND ON THIS

THEN IT RUNS DIRECTLY !!!

I'm not talking about putting the ISO on a USB Key and then install it on your hard disk of a PC but installing it directly on it so it's ready to run on every PC on which we put the key.

NB I would like to remind everyone that the version of Windows 8 used from myself for these experiments is Windows Customer Preview 8 32 BIT, it is freely and can be found on Microsoft's site and downloading is free. This is not the ultimate version 'cause Win 8 is not out yet (due out in late 2012, perhaps) or a pirated copy. Therefore I don't intend to encourage or push someone to piracy. All of following is perfectly legal.

A few simple steps and an afternoon of testing. Here's how I did:

01) download the ISO of Windows 8 Customer Preview from Microsoft's Site (English)

02) note the relative activation KEY (always English)

03) unzip the ISO of windows with WinRAR to any folder on your PC

04) unzip the file /SOURCES/INSTALL.WIM with "UniExtract" (universal extractor) in any folder on your PC

05) have a partition of at least 12 GB free on your USB stick

06) format it, if u want, as NTFS format with Cluster Size = 1.024 bytes or 2.048 bytes

07) from the disk management of windows on that partition, run the "mark partition as active" so that the PC can then use it to boot

08) copy the entire contents of extracted INSTALL.WIM to that partition (except the trash folder, RECYCLE.BIN)

09) open the attachment that I put here in RAR, copy the 2 files on the USB KEY and from the DOS command line ( if not works, run DOS Shell as administrator ):

10) bcdboot.exe X:\windows /s X:

11) bootsect /nt60 X: /force

where X is the letter of the partition used in the USB stick. Reboot and ensure that the PC starts from USB stick. In figure 01 you can see my 8 partitions on the same USB drive where I have Windows 7 32 & 64 BIT, WINDOWS 8 32 & 64 BIT, LINUX Pinguy 32 & 64 BIT, Easeus Todo Backup Recovery with Linux shell.

NB The above guide works with the English version of Win 8 Customer Preview 32 BIT as well as the same 64 BIT only that the second requires a bit' more size (about 3 GB +). My guide is the minimum requirement under the which wraps everything but if u want it running more lean, fast and efficient, then we say that the ideal is 16 GB free for the 32 BIT and 20 GB for the 64 BIT.

The first start will make the whole configuration of the system, will ask for the key to activate the free copy of the system, your name, a password that you

can create, etc. From second boot, windows 8 will start in half a minute on a dual core processor with 2 GB of RAM. I remind you that booting from USB, will never be as fast as if it were installed on the hard disk, unless you have a USB 3.0 and never the same also in this case...

THIS IS A PREVIEW, THIS METHOD IS NOT YET FOUND IN THE WEB. I CREATED IT ONLY YESTERDAY AFTERNOON BEING ABLE TO DO IT WORKS. MY PROBLEM WAS THE COMMAND LINE FROM DOS BUT NOW IT'S PERFECT AND WORKS PERFECTLY ... SHARE THIS HOW TO IF YOU WANT, JUST PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE MY NAME ... PYCON IS ALWAYS QUALITY !!

UPDATE 11/01/2013 => WINDOWS 8 RTM 32 & 64 Bit

Hello everyone ... After a while 'on the run, I remembered having to try again with the release of Windows 8 RTM Build 9200, then finally ... 2 little hours for testing a program of which I already knew the existence ( not new, just some persons often combine this program with wrong DOS command or not right card format ) et voilà ! IN A FEW STEPS, WINDOWS 8 LIVE USB ... RTM VERSION AND PREVIEWS TOO ( I tried with my old Consumer Preview, I assume that it might work with the very old Developer one ). However, if the preview doesn't work, my previous method still works for sure with the previews...

Pre-requisites:

A) have the ISO Microsoft Windows 8 RTM ( remember men... the free trial is 90 days)

B) have a PRIMARY partition at least 12 GB free space on the USB drive formatted in NTFS with the choice between

- Cluster Size = 512 bytes

- Cluster Size = 1024 bytes

- Cluster Size = 2048 bytes

C) have the two little programs WINRAR (including trial version) & GIMAGEX (opensource)

Here's how:

01) open with WINRAR the ISO of Windows 8 RTM ( or the release u want to use )

02) extract the file /SOURCES/INSTALL.WIM to the hard disk ( where you want )

03) open with GIMAGEX ( Image Extractor Tool ) the file INSTALL.WIM... This's a small portable utility, download it, unzip it where you want and open the executable in 32-bit or 64-bit EXE depending on your system:

- go to 2nd tab "APPLY"

- in the 1st field "Source", click once on Browse and select your file INSTALL.WIM

- in the 2nd field "Destination", click once on Browse and select the root of your USB drive (eg X: )

- in the 3rd field "Image" you can check by clicking on Select that it's the NUMBER 1

- "Verify" not flagged

- "Check" not flagged

- click on APPLY and wait ... here it's stolen to me about 20 minutes ... depends on key and system ...

04) from disk management builted in windows, choose the partition of the USB key used and right click to "mark partition as active" so that the PC can then use it to boot

05) open a DOS command line with administrator privileges

06) go to the directory of the key X: \ Windows \ System32 where X: is the partition of the USB key

07) bcdboot.exe X:\windows /s X: /f ALL

FINISHED!

ENJOY IT !!! PYCON RULEZ !!!