UBCD4Win is a bootable recovery CD that contains
software used for repairing, restoring, or diagnosing almost any
computer problem. Our goal is to be the most complete and easy to use
free computer diagnostic tool. Almost all software included in UBCD4Win
are freeware utilities for Windows®. Some of the tools inlcuded are
"free for personal use" copies so users need to respect these licenses. A
few of the tools included in UBCD4Win are paid for and licensed
software owned by UBCD4win. On occasion we work with software
companies/authors for permission to include their software in our
download or have requested their software better support PE. Users can
freely share copies of UBCD4Win with friends but selling UBCD4Win for a
profit is not acceptable. We have worked hard for many years helping
people for free with this project, others should not make money from our
hard work. If you are a dialup user having a hard time downloading
UBCD4Win, please visit our ordering
page. UBCD4Win is based on Bart's PE©. Bart's PE© builds a Windows®
"pre-install" environment CD, basically a simple Windows® XP booted from
CD. UBCD4Win includes network support and allows you the ability to
modify NTFS volumes, recover deleted files, create new NTFS volumes,
scan hard drives for viruses, etc. Our download includes almost
everything you need to repair your system problems. This project has
been put together to be the ultimate recovery cd and not a replacement
OS (Operating System). Please visit the "List of Tools" page for a complete list of what is included in the latest version of UBCD4Win.
There are requirements for building this CD which
can and may make it difficult for everyone to build the project. Please
understand that these requirements and restrictions are due to copyright
laws, etc. When starting this project I wanted it to be as easy as
possible. I wanted it to be a simple ISO file download just like the
original Ultimate Boot CD. I had to weigh the ease of build and
functionality very carefully. After much thought and research I decided
that Bart's PE© was the best way to accomplish this task. That decision
required a different type of build and more steps for the end user.
Yes more complicated, but I prefer to think of these additional steps in
a positive way. We provide detailed instructions and our forum for
help. Inexperienced users will feel a sense of accomplishment and gain
knowledge when they successfully build the CD.
Remember that we are a freeware tool. We still have
hosting and other costs to pay every month. If UBCD4Win has helped you
and you are able to, please consider donating.
How did this project start?
This project was started because of requests from
members of the original Ultimate Boot CD yahoo group. Several members
wanted a "Windows®" version of the Ultimate Boot CD. After a few days no
one had volunteered, so I decided that I had enough time to do this and
it was my way to give something back to the computing community. The
"true" and "pure" ideal of helping people quickly spread, after close to
6 years now the project continues to grow.
April 2, 2004, I created the UBCDWindows group. The
first few weeks consisted mostly of discussions on how to accomplish
this. We had to decide what should be included and searched for great
stuff. After searching and reading a lot of web pages I finally decided
that Bart's PE© was the best option.
One of the first issues I saw was one of the requirements for Bart's PE©, an XP CD with SP1. I personally had upgraded to XP right when XP came out so I did not have SP1 on my XP CD. I found several solutions for this issue but manually slipstreaming required several applications and would add more complexity to the project. I didn't like this added complexity but figured we would be able to do something about that. A better solution was created and is discussed below.
One of the first issues I saw was one of the requirements for Bart's PE©, an XP CD with SP1. I personally had upgraded to XP right when XP came out so I did not have SP1 on my XP CD. I found several solutions for this issue but manually slipstreaming required several applications and would add more complexity to the project. I didn't like this added complexity but figured we would be able to do something about that. A better solution was created and is discussed below.
April 20, 2004, I launched this site. After a few days
of getting everything setup I realizing it was easy to setup a forum.
So I announced the imminent closing of the yahoo group and requested
that everyone join the forum. The project and forum have grown since its
start. Member registrations continue to grow and new teams have been
created to help the development and support of the project.
The slipstreaming problem needed addressed so I contacted one of my friends that is a programmer. Anonios (author of AutoPatcher)
was glad to help and we started working together on creating a
slipstreaming application. We worked pretty hard for several weeks
creating the application. Well, he did all the coding work and I just
helped with testing, minor details, and the dialogue for the prompts.
On July 9, 2004 we released AutoStreamer 1.0!!
February 23, 2006 is another great day in the history
of this project. Only a week after starting a "donation rally" to
purchase an OEM license for Bart PE©, we hit our goal!! We now own a
license for Bart PE©! This has helped simplify the project in many ways.
Now when you download the project it is ONE download. There are no
extra or complicated extraction steps, no "extract this
here....delete....extract here", etc. Having the license has given us
the ability to change and simplify many other things also. I thank all
the great users who helped us purchase the license in order to make it
better and easier for EVERYONE!!
February 2007, another donation rally and another OEM
license for the project!! Thanks to everyone who donated towards our
RamDrive license. That annoying little "popup" asking people to purchase
RamDrive or error screen are gone. This is a newer version with few
restrictions and is capable of creating up to a 2 Gigabyte RamDrive.
Thanks again everyone for helping to make the project better and easier
for everyone.
April 3, 2007 yet more capabilities are added to
UBCD4Win. After over a year of my development team working with BTS
driverpacks driver team, BartPE support is added to the BTS driverpacks!
I can't congratulate or thank the members of my development team that
worked on this enough. Bashrat has a great driverpack that he has been
working hard on for years and we greatly appreciate his help and
support. Kudos to OverFlow for all of his work and time spent working on
this implementation.
