This guide provides an easy and relatively quick way to PXE boot windows which means you can install Windows over the network with PXE without the need for a CD drive. While the previous guide allows you to slip stream updates and add extra programs it took a LONG LONG time to do, especially with all the downloads it needed to do, this one just installs a vanilla XP, nice and simple, and a lot quicker 
Step 1: Getting started.
What you’ll need:
- Windows 2000/XP CD (to get the i386 directory off it)
- PC running 2000/XP (to act as a server)
- Laptop capable of booting over PXE (such as the L400).
- Tftpd32
- Bart Network Boot Disk
- SMARTDRV.EXE
- A Share. The Server must be able to share files (any Microsoft Windows computer can).
- Working router or plain crossover cable.
Once you’ve collected all of the above, lets begin;
- Create a share, for the sake of argument create it at c:\WINSTALL
- Copy your i386 folder and SMARTDRV.EXE into this folder
- Make a note of your computer name/host name, you can find this out by right clicking on “My Computer”, going to properties, go to “Computer Name” tab, look under Full computer name, in my example, the computers name is STAR, i believe the name needs to be 12 chars or less for this to work in dos mode, so if its longer change it and reboot.
- Create a folder to PXE boot from, c:\OUTPUT
April 26th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
[...] You may have read in a previous post how i installed Ubuntu on my sisters laptop with PXE, well this worked great, but i couldnt for the life of me get WPA to work on the wireless card, so after about a week of trying i decided to try and PXE boot windows as the laptop had no floppy drive, no CD drive and couldnt boot from USB, what follows is the result of the trials and tribulations of that experience…. enjoy. If you want a quicker, simpler installation with a vanilla XP check this Easy way to PXE Boot Windows guide. [...]
April 30th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Hey, tried this - works very well, easy to follow
May 9th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Could you please explain step 4 more clearly. how do you create text file so it isn’t default.txt
May 10th, 2008 at 2:07 am
@Steve: you need to have “show known file types” enabled (or something similar, i’ve only done it on an XP machine, writing this on a vista machine, so cant reference), then just make sure it doesnt have an extension
May 12th, 2008 at 4:46 am
is there a bart boot disk that contains the NVIDIA ethernet driver? is there a way to make one?
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
When I try to map a drive to \\host\shared, I get error 53: The computer name specified in the network path cannot be located. What am I doing wrong?
May 24th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Most likely you arent setting the lmhosts file properly, this needs to be done before the host can be resolved
May 27th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Thanks alot
i think you must mestion in last step
- install XP by Map net drive
and write the command Winnt
you must have fat32 drive to cache files setup
otherwise it will stop at startup & exit
thanks
May 27th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Steve Says:
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
When I try to map a drive to \\host\shared, I get error 53: The computer name specified in the network path cannot be located. What am I doing wrong?
I thik your network not working propley so or there is anther DHCP working in same Networking assign the system and confilect with the tftpd32
thaks
May 27th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
shon Says:
May 12th, 2008 at 4:46 am
is there a bart boot disk that contains the NVIDIA ethernet driver? is there a way to make one?
there is I think availabe in Universal Boot Disk i test it very will
thanks
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Error 53:
NetBios to tcp/ip hass enabled on XP machine - worked for me,
Alex
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 pm
i have gone over and over this. i am not new to pxe install, i have done it many times for ubuntu myself, I guess i am getting lost where it is to look for the default, but cant find it. I have completed the task’s to a t, i have dbl and triple checked the contents of the “output” file, it is the same as yours!
i must have messed up on the default file, but i named it default, not defaul.txt. any ideas? thanks
July 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am
@david That sounds really bizarre, do you have any IM software? I’ll talk directly to you if you want, email me ur address to kode-at-lockstockmods.net change the -at- to the at sign obviously
I have msn, gtalk and yahoo, first two are best though