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UBCD4Win Setup Guide

July 10th, 2007 Posted in Tech

I often need to diagnose hardware faults or troubleshoot an install which may contain spyware, viruses or have other issues. As far as I’m concerned there is only one* tool that gets the job done with anywhere near a satisfactory success rate.

What you need

• XP SP2 media
• UBCD4Win (current version: 3.20)

Install UBCD4Win and run through the file verification process as prompted and launch the program.



1. Point PE builder to your XP install files (you can point to your CD drive but it may be more reliable to copy the entire CD to a folder on your hard drive)
2. Click Plugins to launch the main configuration section of the UBCD4Win



Plugin modification

Some plugins that ship with the current release aren’t always the latest versions and other plugins may require modification.

Memtest86+ (current version 2.01)

The latest version should be downloaded. Get the pre-built bootable iso zip archive, extract and place in the memtest plugin folder. Rename the file to memtest.iso, also delete any existing memtest.is_ file.

The default path to the plugin folder is:

Configure plugins

Now we need to get the latest updates to some of our plugins as well as setup some others. This is done by highlighting the plugin (click its entry in the list) and then click the Config button in the lower portion of the UI.

Do so for the following plugins and follow the on-screen instructions as required:

• UltimateBootCD for DOS
• Enable Vista Recovery Disk
• DriverPack
• Spybot Search and Destroy 1.5
• AVG v7.5.x
• Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool

Note: You just need to Config the first DriverPack entry in the Plugins list and make sure the second is enabled.

Cosmetic improvements

In order for the MyInfo plugin to work a background image is required. The problem being; if you have a system using an unsupported graphics adapter any image looks so bad it renders using the UBCD4Win almost impossible.

I work around this by replacing the default background image for the desktop with a solid colour jpeg with the same filename and dimensions as the default file.

You can find the default desktop background in this location:

Disable plugins

I disable a lot of the default plugins both to save space and achieve a clean, functional environment targeted solely to what I use regularly. You may want to evaluate the full array of plugins before you decide what to disable (if any). Here is my list of disabled plugins for reference.

Building the iso

Once you’re happy all plugins are configured or disabled as desired, click Close to return to the PE Builder window and review your paths for the resulting iso and XP source files. Click Build to start the process and watch for any errors or warnings. If you run into difficulties I suggest searching the UBCD4Win.com forums for the error to find a resolution.

Basic things to bear in mind are anti-virus software’s realtime scanning may interfere with the build process and trying to build in safe mode can alleviate a lot of the variables that may interfere with a build. It’s also recommended to only use SP2 media (ie: no extra slipstreamed updates beyond the service pack). I’d also avoid adding custom plugins or other commercial plugins until you are happy with the results of a default build. Use the default paths as well, or at least avoid any spaces in directory and file names.

The one other thing that’s a real time saver is to use VMware Server (free) to test booting your isos without having to burn discs. Just create an XP virtual machine and point its CD drive to your iso file and let it boot off it to test your UBCD4Win. You can also use a VM for your build environment if you run into problems building on your hardware.

* There are, of course, other BartPE based boot CDs and you can investigate the alternatives as well. I feel UBCD4Win saves a lot of time assembling individual plugins from around the net and is actively developed with new features being rolled in regularly.