To be free from depencencies of the installed OS, you can have a OS installed on the USB flashdrive, and boot the machine fresh on your stick only.

Last year i played with this Mandriva based free OS that can be put on a cheap small USB stick.
http://www.mcnlive.org/
It really is impressive.

I was thinking i could install it on a large and fast USB stick together with a PC emulator and in that install Win2k.
But i bought a Laptop instead... Less freaky, but you do not need to ask the customer for a laptop... which migth not boot from USB anway... ;)


To install, you download the file and burn on a CD, boot the PC on that, and you can use it that way, or from the desktop when booted, make it install to the flash drive.  The system resides in a compressed filesystem.  Any new files (programs or documents) are stored uncompressed, but it can actually remaster itself!

Mandriva also have a commercial version
http://www.mandriva.com/enterprise/en/company/press/new-2008-mandriva-flash-4gb-released-today

I remember seeing a site with build tools to make something similar oneself but i forgot what it was called.

-- 
Morgan Olsson
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