In this boot CD are the most popular and useful tools anyone would ever need. The best of the free software, the best of the commercial software, and it all fits on one CD-R that's readable by any computer worth booting on. Not everything can read a DVD, and USB booting is hit and miss at best.
This is the Ultimate Boot CD that I've used myself, and all the combined tools I use for PC diagnostics at the shop I work at. It's been part of my toolbox for years. With the release of Hiren's BootCD 9.7, the entire playing field has been shifted, with the new MiniXP boot functionality. It's a 30mb image that loads and decompresses into RAM, then boots Windows off RAM at lightning speed - including reading to RAM, it appears to boot even faster than off a hard drive... and still gives you network (and internet) functionality on many PCs. Many drivers for net and SATA are built right in, but you can load anything with the F6 driver prompt during startup.
Hiren's XP BootCD is an extremely useful diagnostic tool, and is at the heart of this BootCD.However, several techs (myself included) have found issues with the lack of easy access to the multitude of tools on the disc, so I created a modification platform to add shortcuts to popular applications right on the desktop, made several adjustments, added a bunch of tools, and even put much of the modification power right in your hands. With F4UBCD 4.0, it's now easier than ever to just drop a folder in, add a line, and get your own program added.
Many techs use ERD Commander, which (after the Microsoft acquisition) is now known as Microsoft DaRT - the Diagnostic and Recovery Toolkit. It's a considerably smaller (than Hiren/UBCD4Win) set of extremely useful and specialized tools to repair Windows. I've repackaged the XP version into a lightning-fast-booting compressed RAM disk, and added DaRT 6.0 for Windows Vista. Both versions include tools like Offline System Restore, System File Checker, and Crash Analyzer.
If you work in a tech shop, you know the pain of user passwords. The typical order of business would be to use NTPWEdit to erase the login passwords (replaces Active Password Changer). However, Kon-Boot actually patches the Windows kernel in RAM during startup, causing it to ignore an incorrect password at login! You can log in without entering the user's password, perform your tech duties, shut the system off, and their password stays intact. It's still an experimental tool, and often fails to start on many computers, but it's a great new tool that makes a valuable addition to a tech toolkit.
Once you dive into this disc, you'll never need another boot CD.
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