Creating a "live" Windows 2000 CD-ROM

[rmyadsk]

Hi all,

I have some spare hardware and am building an x86 box to be a firewall for my home LAN. I'd like to install Windows 2000 Professional to a hard disk, apply hotfixes, etc., then the firewall software - but then copy the Windows partition to a CD-R disc and remove the hard drive from the system. Though the runtimes would still be present, nothing could be written to the disk.

Of course, the CD-R would have to be made bootable - I've done some research and found information about the "El Torito" format. There appears to be some information on doing this sort of thing with Linux, but for this case I'd like to use w2kpro. And of course it goes without saying the Windows partition would have to be seriously stripped down to fit on a 700MB disc, or some sort of compression would be needed.

Has anyone had any experience in this? Any information or links would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-Ryan

 

[CTho9305]

This has some info. I think it is mostly about win9x. This article is good for win98....

 

[dartblazer]

First, if you're being legal and obeying the law you're wasting a windows2000 license on this machine. And getting a windows2000 install down to under 700MB is gonna be tough. Although you could do it with win98 easily, but thats not all that stable.

My suggestion is go with linux or a *bsd(some are just a single floppy even), or buy a cheap small hard drive and use anything you want.

Here is a fellow anandtecher selling a cheap hard drive.

Edit:
Here is a FreeBSD LiveCD Firewall. Web interface, good features it seems like. And its free.