Bart's PE Builder helps you build a "BartPE" (Bart Preinstalled Environment) bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.
It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on.
This will replace any Dos bootdisk in no time!
Speaking of upgrades - how far off is Longhorn/Vista yet? Next summer still? Any of the folks on here that hang around Redmond using it at work yet? Anyone think they will run Betas/RCs on their PCs?
Damn - I am replying to a thread that I last replied to...
OpenOffice 2.0 is out now from Sun. I have used its word proc a bit on other pcs and the presentation software on this one. I have been quite happy with both of them. But the question is - can one successfully convert fully away from MS Office? There was a problem with the 2.0 beta of Impress files saved as ppt files being opened in Power Point. I do not know if that has been fixed, but assuming it has and all files are fully compatible - is it a viable option?
Right now the big problem seems to be Outlook. I am pretty damn tied into Outlook - which is pretty damn tied into Word. Can those ties be cut? OpenOffice does not include email sw. I have never found a replacement for Outlook. Thunderbird is a replacement for Outlook Express.
Here is some rather unexciting news about Vista code shipping in August. The comments are worth reading, though, for some entertaining thoughts. And another Ars article about Vista and shake ups in Redmond.
