Hello, I first want to say hi to everybody and say how impressed I am with the features of this product. I have no yet tried it out, but I am VERY eager to give it a shot.

Just to give a little info on what I am looking to do with this..

I run a small home-based business where I get local people's computers which are running incredibly slow and are infected with tons of viruses and/or maleware, and I clean the pc's up for them to get them running just like new again. I see way too many people that buy a new pc, and in a month's time of surfing the internet, their computer is running like a Pentium I, lol. Anyhow, this is most of my business, but I also have those jobs where I need to reinstall the operating system or backup and restore their data, etc. And even some other jobs where there is faulty hardware that I need to replace.

In any event, I am looking for a product just like yours where I can get a customers pc, load this cdrom into it, and then it will boot up into a 'fake' version of windows where I can perform all the tasks to clean up their computers. Such as cleaning out their start menus, running anti-virus programs, running anti-spyware programs, backing up their data, etc. The problem is that if you just take their computer like I do now, load up regular windows, install something like Adaware on there and run it, it will not always totally clean the pc out because there are certain things it can't get rid of because they are in use by windows, etc. If I am able to totally bypass the installed version of windows, I think I could do a much better and quicker way of cleaning out the pcs completely of all the bad stuff!

I was wondering a few things however..

1.) Can I use this cd for business purposes like I said above?

2.) What if the clients pc is running Windows 2000, ME, 98, 95, etc... will this cd work? or will it ONLY work with pc's that are running Windows XP SP1 or greater?

3.) Is this cd similar to what big tech support shops like Best Buy's etc. use to clean out and fix somebodies pc? I called Best Buy and they said they can do the whole spyware, virus removal thing without installing any software onto the harddrive.. I never knew how this could be possible?

4.) Is the main use of this product for people like me that fix other's computers very often? Do you find that this cd makes the process so much easier and faster to fix a computer and clean all the bad stuff off of it?

5.) Are there any licensing issues with the applications that are installed on this cd? for instance, I know that in the Adaware programs license it says that you can't install Adaware on a customers pc in order to use the program to get paid...

Thanks again.. this product certainly seems like the BEST possible computer repair product I have yet to come across!

1. Yes you can use the PROJECT the way you want to. For the most part that is, some of the freeware applications in the PROJECT state in their EULA's that their software is only for personal use, etc. Check the FAQ section of the forum. However, I have received many emails from small shops such as yourself that thank me for the project and praise how much time they have saved working on computers when they use the PROJECT. The only thing that "erks" me is the fact that they are making more money and saving a lot of time thanks to the project. I'm not begging for a donation or anything but I personally find this very rude, if you are making money with this project....why not show some appreciation for our work and donate? I have personaly donated to several of the freeware projects either included or recommended by me, because I respect their hard work.

2.The built CD should work on any OS. The CD boots into it's own miniOS so it doesn't care what is installed on the system.

3.I really don't know. Maybe I need to get a job a Best Buy now?? To find out what they are using! I wonder if my one buddy still works for them, he's gonna have to get me a copy of what they have!!

4. I think this was covered in #1.

5. That was also partially covered in #1. I suggest you navigate and search the forum more. I understand that you want quick answers (most of us do) but you also have to understand that a lot of people have spent a lot of time working on this project for free. The FAQ section of the forum is a great place to look for some answers. If you tried to view the FAQ on the site today you may have noticed that I have some of the questions answered. I've been working on the page today and trying to get everything done. I've received several emails from people complaining that it wasn't working, etc. and I've finally found the time to get more work done on it.

Finally, this a PROJECT not a product. If it were a product, you would be paying for it. I do not mean to sound rude but it's just something that has always bothered me. I guess it's because I (and many others) have spent so much of my time on this project to help people. People that work on "products" get PAID.

well just me just say this, if I can actually build this thing and I do use it with good success, you will definately be getting some money from me. I too believe that if something saves you time and makes you more money, you should definately pay those who helped you do that!

I just want to make sure I am not breaking the law or anything first by doing something like this..

a couple other things that came to mind are this..

1.) Programs like anti-virus and anti-spyware are releasing new definition files weekly or even sooner sometimes. If I make a cd that has todays def files on it, but then next week a newer def file comes out, what do I need to make a whole new cd again just for the latest def files? or is there a way to have the antivirus or spyware program download the new defintion files from the internet to use in it's scan? the only problem I see with this is where will it save the downloaded files too? It can't write them to the cd...
If in fact you do have to create a new cd with the newest definition files each week or whatever, do you provide these new cd downloads on your website as soon as a new definition file comes out?

2.) Does anything at all actually get loaded or installed onto the customers pc? I ask because if I am using my own paid for version of Windows XP to create this cd, I DO NOT want any chance of my Windows copy getting onto their computer, this is highly illegal. But then again, wouldn't it still be against the windows xp license to use my personal version of windows to run on somebodies else pc? even if it is only ran from a CD and not actually installed on the customers pc? I don't know if Microsoft took this possibility into account since there probably wasn't a project like UBCD4Win at the time of creating windows..

3.) By using a UBCD4Win boot cd, do you actually totally bypass the computers installed version of windows completely? so for instance, if the computer has loads of viruses or adaware on it that all starts up when Windows loads, if you use the cd to boot windows, does this bad stuff all NOT get a chance to load at all? so once you start running the adaware and antivirus programs, they have no chance of being shut down by malware and they can completely remove any and all spyware or viruses on the computer? I know right now with programs like Adaware, certain stuff can't be removed until the next reboot of windows since the files are currently in use or embed themselves into windows core files, etc.

sorry for all the questions, I just want to make sure this project will do what I am looking for before I invest all the time in building it, testing it, etc. As a software engineer by profession, I really do give you and the other developers my full admiration for what you have developed here..

p.s.-> yes if you could get that Best Buy "magic" cd to see what exactly they use and compare to what you have here, that would be indeed very very interesting..

@Squale

1) the only Antivirus that i know of that can DL .dat files "on-the-fly" (ie. from inside the UBCD envronment) is McAfee. theres some forum post around here that details what it does... but basically you execute a .bat that somebody put together and it DLs the latest superdat from McAfee and installs it to the RAMdrive. This .bat is now standard issue with the project... its called mcafee.cmd

other than that, yes you will need to DL the newest .dat files, put them in the proper folder within the plugins directory (you'll know more this directory when you start tinkering with the project), rebuild the project and then burn it to a CD. I suggest getting a CD-RW, ive found it very usefull to do this as you dont burn-up (literally) all those CR-ROMs

1b) We've been having problems with some of the spy-ware programs because they are hard-coded to scan the registry hive of the active OS... which in our case is the CD drive because the UBCD and PEbuilder (the software that builds the UBCD) does such a good job at emulating the OS. So not to many (or any that i know of) spyware programs work from within the project as of this date. This is an active issue within the community and several people are woking very hard to resolve this issue (Thanks All )

2 and 3) the UBCD creates a virtual drive on the ram using a percentage of that computers ram to load the simulated windows environment on. ( this is also where the McAfee .bat saves the superdat) So when you rebot the computer without the UBCD everything on the ram drive gets erased. So.. technically... yes stuff gets loaded on a temporary basis onto the RAM, but it gets erased on reboot.

AV is updateable before you create the ISO and while you are running the CD. Most AV software included in the project is run from the RAM drive so it's possible to update it.

Please dig into the forum a little more, especially the FAQ!!

ah.. correction.. what Steel said

okay great thanks. Interesting how this works. So you are saying that programs like Adaware currently do not work properly or run at all off the cd?

It seems that within the last several months that some programs have been changed, they have more dependencies on certain Windows settings so they will REFUSE to work in the project. After months of testing and research we think we have figured out what we need to include in the project to get them to work. Currently, AdAware works ok. CWShredder hasn't worked in the project for months, but now thanks to hard work and testing we think we've figured out that problem among others. So currently the project should give good results when using AdAware. In the next 2-4 weeks a new version of the project should be ready for release that will fix many of the other issues we have seen in the past 6 months.

Give it a try and let us know how it works for you currently. In about a month the new version will be released and will include a lot of new stuff!

I've got the McAfee plugin on my Website.

Plus I've also got Sophos and Mwav (based on Kaspersky scan engine).


Instructions on updating AV Scanners

The Antiivirpersonal on the project has a built in updater so it doesn't metter when it is built as it will check for updates on launch if your connected the internet at launch. Mcafee in the project does not update and I was unaware of the mcafee.cmd file to incorporate the supredat file. (had a virus ona client machine and was frustrated at not being able to update mcafee...)

Adaware from the UBCD4Win project on launch asks if you want to load a remote personal registry and will scan that. The BartPE Adaware plugin does not. I simply delete the default plugin prior to install of UBCD4Win and it works just fine.

My mcafee plugin will allow you to download either the current dat or the beta dats.

The choice is yours, with a slight bit of modding to the xml file it will fit into the ubcd4win menu structure.

Also to note and what was not mentioned in this post.



Bottom line you will be very happy with this CD. I do also recommend using a CDRW and before burning make sure you update all your def files for
adaware defs and Dats for your AV plugin (AVpersonal updates). This will also save you time once you load it if you already have the updates installed.

Good luck and hope you find the enjoyment and usefulness that we all here have found from Steels project.

thanks guys, has anybody actually customized this further to make a cd that is more geared towards antivirus and anti-malware removal? I see some tools listed but some others I regularly use are missing. For instance Spybot is missing which is a really good one. There are some others as well. Looking at the list of tools, there are lots that I wouldn't really use, so I think that in my case, a cd full of more antivirus and anti-malware tools would be in my best interest. Will new tools like this be added soon?

what I don't understand is that with these tools, they like to deep scan the registry and other windows specific locations. Now if the infected version of Windows is not running, how does it get to the registry and clean all of this stuff out? It would seem to me the programs can only clean the harddrives and if something is hidingi n the registry, on the next bootup of regular windows, the viruses and malware will come back?

Thanks guys, I need to try and build this thing today..

I have not found anything better!
As we have explained it has been tried to get SB working without success. It appears that they may be designed some of the SB tools though to work better in PE for the future. This is something we can't control for now and you would need to possibly request this from the SB authors.

New tools are always being added and change or updated as needed. The UBCD4Win "PROJECT" is not just designed for one intention as you asked. You have the full ability just as the rest of us to ADD or REMOVE any plugins you see fit. IE you find a SB plugin that works properly you could add it to your UBCD4Win build. Customize and Personalize. As support here though is geared more towards the "original" build of UBCD4Win because we can't support every plugin "Joe Nobody" creates.

First let me explain something, If you remove the BAD app the registry can't execute anything to go get anything to bring back the BAD app. So if you remove the BAD app you effectively remove the problem. Second loading the remote registry is one of the hardest task of all of these plugins and usually requires the original Software Vendors to build the app with this feature. Steel does work hard though trying to get all plugins fully functional but sometimes it just isn't possible without the Vendors cooperation.

I would HIGHLY suggest this because you have had a lot of comments that you have not had experience with even using yet. So please start to play and learn and then ask your questions. Or even better try offer some solutions to the issues you find.

Oh yeah, I hope you enjoy this project as much as the rest of us but remember there is an entire community that Steel has to try to please so nothing will be designed for just one purpose.

sounds good... I didn't understand the part of if you remove the app then the registry can't load anything, thanks. I guess it doesn't matter if there is still bad stuff in the registry after you clean off the bad app cause the registry won't do anything with it.

I will start building this now...

should I update the virus and adaware definitions before building the ISO?

yes you should update those...

You say it correctly in your second sentence. Think of the registry as a ton of commands and settings that tell applications what to do but it isn't an actual application. Therefore in theory it needs an app to be truly bad. No app no malicious behavior. Now doesn't mean that something can't be written that could use the apps that already exist in Windows to do malicious behavior which wouldn't get deleted. I don't know of a case of this yet though. So you should be covered.

is everyone else here missing something???? this guy actually fixes peoples computers for money!!!! Someone needs to call the better business buro now before someone really has a damn bad day!

If anyone has not said this to you before, consider this your wake up call: I have been reading your posts all over this forum sucking time and answers about the most juvenile things, you have wasted so much of peoples times its crazy. You clearly are no where near experienced enough to fix peoples pc's as a business, being someone who does this for a living, you are the one that gives us a bad name and makes them call best buy! read some books, go to some school, apprentice for a while, just dont make people think they are hiring a professional when they are getting joe i know some stuff about adaware.

ok sorry for the rant everyone but after reading these forums as a guest for so long and seeing this guys post i just had to speak my mind, and i assume whats been on the mind of a lot of other people.

i joined specifically to agree with cray. is squale tarded? theres no way people are paying him as a computer expert. perhaps he's "planning" on starting a business venture 'fixing' peoples computers, but i guarantee it will specifically revolve around this boot cd [even though the very idea appears to baffle him at this point]

heres some priceless items from good ol squale:

uhh. no. you should probably stick with the outdated definitions. i think that would be best for a virus and spyware removal expert like yourself.

glad you asked! your copy of windows will, in fact, be fully installed on their computer. your retail or oem keys will also be emailed to all of your customers when you use this boot cd.

tard.

great question. yes, all viruses on the hard drive will infect your cd and ramdrive immedietly upon booting.

you heard it here folks, the bar for software engineers has officially been lowered to embarassingly inadequete depths. god forbid you spend any time actually 'testing' the disc. i mean, after all, you would have to charge the developers of this freeware project your hourly rate if you had to spend any time 'testing' software that doesnt do exactly what you want.


sorry, i know this is an all accepting community and everything but a self-proclaimed software engineer and in home computer tech should have a working knowledge of computer basics beyond that of a 12 year old.

cray, you're not alone on this one.

Welcome to the forum zencat and cray1000!

Another "Squale" is present in what has been preserved of the 911cd forum after being hacked.

By the way, squale is another term for shark.

Hmmm, welcome to the forum both of you. While your first posts may seem a bit "questionable" in some people's eyes I try keep all information intact. Unless there are complaints about a post, profanitities, etc. I rarely edit posts. I have nothing to hide and I think the users of the project should have "free speech."

We try to remain as professional as possible here and try to tolerate as much abuse as possible. At times it can be frustrating, especially since none of us get paid for this project.....we are all here wanting to help people and since we do not get paid of course have full time jobs.

I did eventually contact "squale" and I think I scared him away, that is why he hasn't posted in quite some time. I NEVER want to scare users away from the project, I started this to help people. However there is a limit to being lazy, posting ettiqutte, bad questions, etc. after a while it does have to stop.....I'll be 30 this year and I want to go bald naturally and not by pulling my hair out on my own!

Thanks for joining the forum, I look forward to future more "productive" posts from you two. Enjoy the forum!!


BTW- the Squale in CDForum, seems to be a different person. That person joined CDForum a long time ago and, by the looks of a few posts I viewed, seems to have some knowledge of BPE.

Hey Steele, no you didn't scare me away, I just don't post anymore due to lamn ass users like you have above. People that have nothing better to do than put others down, I wonder what's going wrong in their lives that this is how shallow they have become..

do I do this as a profession, no I do it as a side job, programming is my profession. Do I NEED to do this to support my family, NO, programming pays very very well, I just do this to help out local users and mainly friends and families. I have fixed many computers before and I"m pretty sure I can get the job done in the right way.

So a little advice to you pathethic fools above, if you don't have anything nice to say, just keep your fat mouths closed! Your rude responses don't do any good to this forum or the people in it. You talk about people wasting their time reading my posts, why don't you consider the time people are wasting reading your ridiculous rants.

Steele, you certainly are a nice guy and I think you have something good going here, but I will not be posting anymore as I don't wish to participate in forums with those who get a hardon by putting people down. I wish you the best of luck with the project.
Thanks again Steele and to the others who have answered my questions in a professional manner.

And to those who waste hours of their time going back and reading my posts for no other reason than to put me down, wow, you certainly need to get a life. I really feel bad for you!

ps. -> I have NEVER posted nor even read a post over at the 911 forum so whoever you are talking about over there hacking the forums, don't pin it on me, I surely don't use that site.

Well, I thank you for your compliments and really don't know what else to say. I hope you continue to use this project and it is very helpful for you as you help others.

People have their opinions.

I am always available via email, IM chat, Skype, Skype chat, and by phone if users need me or have questions.

That wasn't what he was implying. He was just stating that a user with the name of "Squale" was a member of 911CDForum and was stating the fact that 911cd was hacked. It was never implied that you were the culprit. I would never allow those type of posts or flames in this forum. Please read it more carefully.

I'm going to make an executive decision here and CLOSE THIS TOPIC. There has been enough said, many things that shouldn't have been said, but let it stand to serve as a lesson for everyone. Everything in this topic has been covered and does NOT need to be opened anywhere else. If I see someone going on about similar issues again, I will immediately close the topic and possibly ban the user. I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a mean bastard hard-ass, but to me, this has gone far enough. Thank you.