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Add to SafariWhen comparing Hiren's Boot CD vs Slax, the Slant community recommends Hiren's Boot CD for most people. In the question“What are the must have rescue live systems to have on a USB pendrive?” Hiren's Boot CD is ranked 2nd while Slax is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Hiren's Boot CD is:
Hiren's Boot CD is completely free, always has been and always will be.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely free
Hiren's Boot CD is completely free, always has been and always will be.
Pro Hiren Boot PE
It is the latest.
Pro Extremely popular
Hiren's Boot CD is very popular. Anyone who has ever worked in support or system administration probably has used it at least once.
Because of this, it's extremely easy to find guides and tutorials on how to use it, or if a tutorial does not explain everything, chances are that you can find someone to help you with it.
Pro That PE was the only IT tool of every usage, made by a professional and covering all aspects of system's maintainance
Its "popularity" is not a reason to add any PRO. It has gained its popularity because of high level making. Most of that popularity was at the time it included all commercial products such as Acronis, Paragon, Symantec, etc.. It's only after version 10.4 that those apps were dropped out.
There is also no reason to qualify it in CON only because it's outdated as it was discontinued years ago.
For users that still run Win XP or Win 7 it's still relevant in most cases. You just have to realize that it was built at a time when common systems was based on x86 architecture, not x64 one.
Pro Persistent changes
Changes you make in the configuration persist if you run from USB.
Pro Pretty fast to boot up
It was considerably fast to turn on when booting from cd.
Pro Modules
Standard tar archives plus some simple shell scripting produces modules that you can load dynamically into the OS for added apps and functionality.
Pro Modern desktop
Pro Small footprint
About 200mb, but with a full KDE4 environment and loads of useful apps.
Cons
Con Productkey hacking tool found during installation
Worth mentioning that tools on this disc can create false positives in anti-virus softwares though.
Con It's not free
Paid over 20$, it is useless, period.
Con Not a Hirens creation
Hirens did not make this. This is FAN MADE and it's kinda slimy to use Hirens name on it.
Con Overly complicated HDD/SSD installation
While it has a nice layout Slax's lack of an installer tool like Tinycore's just can't be justified. It seems strange that it comes built in with programs that some users may not want, yet it doesn't have an easy way to install it. Due to its heavier use of RAM, built in software, and lack of an installer its hard to choose it over TC.
Con Works slowly on old computers
Con Infrequent releases
Since Slax is maintained by only one person, releases are not that frequent. So it may take a while to get bug fixes or new features once you start using it.
