The following page will show what ARCDC does behind the scenes.

Running ARCDC.

When you double click ARCDC it will extract the program to %temp%\ARCDC and it will run the program.

The Welcome Screen.

While ARCDC will show a welcome screen it sets a number of variables.
It will also create a folder on your system drive where it will temporarily store the files for the ISO at %systemdrive%\RecoveryCD
After clicking OK, ARCDC will start to prepare for downloading the right boot disks to create the ISO.

Picking your OS.

Next, ARCDC will ask you what OS (Operating System) you want to use the Recovery Console on. Please make sure that the OS that you select is the OS of the target computer. Once you select an OS, ARCDC will reach out to the web and download one of the following packages. It will be downloaded under the name BootDisk.exe

XPHomeOriginal; http://download.microsoft.com/download/WinXPHome/Install/310994/WIN98MeXP/EN-US/WinXP_EN_HOM_BF.EXE

XPHomeSP1; http://download.microsoft.com/download/WinXPHome/Install/SP1/W98NT42KMeXP/EN-US/winxpsp1_en_hom_bf.exe

XPHomeSP2; http://download.microsoft.com/download/e/2/d/e2df3275-51b0-47d9-bb42-a69c80f98333/WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Home-BootDisk-ENU.exe

XPProfOriginal; http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/310994/WIN98MeXP/EN-US/WinXP_EN_PRO_BF.EXE

XPProfSP1; http://download.microsoft.com/download/whistler/Install/SP1/W98NT42KMeXP/EN-US/winxpsp1_en_pro_bf.exe

XPProfSP2; http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/8/9/a894bc9a-b4ff-48f1-a94d-6491508dbd20/WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Pro-BootDisk-ENU.exe

Adding the Extra Files.

One of the extra features that ARCDC has is the ability to add extra files to the disk -before- the ISO is created making the adding of extra files seamless. ARCDC will open a screen to ask you if you want to use the Default Files or use Extra Files.

If you select Extra Files, you will be presented with a text box where you can add the paths of files you want to add. If you would like to add the “explorer” for example, the path you would add would be; C:\Windows\explorer.exe

You can also use the Browse function to add files by browsing to the file and adding them like that. The text box is mainly useful for forum helpers that know the path to the file to make the step easier for the user.

Putting the ISO together.

After downloading the package and defining the Extra Files, ARCDC will extract the files from the downloaded package and start arranging it in the created folder using splitter to create the boot image and using extract to get all the needed files to use the Recovery Console.

Burning the ISO.

And last but not least, ARCDC will present you with a screen to either Quit the program or Burn the disk. If you would choose to Burn the disk, it will open BurnCDCC to burn the disk to CD.