Installing Windows 7 using a USB Stick

Wednesday, January 14 2009 - Windows

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Everyone's excited about Windows 7, so am i. However, i do notice a new generation of computing equipment, commonly known as Netbooks.
They are much lower in specs. Normally featuring an Intel Atom with 1 or 2GB of ram. Now Win7 is much more capable of running on Netbooks.
This video shows you how you can install Win7 on netbooks, which do not normally come with a DVD Drive. The video shows you how to prepare a USB drive with the installation bits and install off it.

 

The steps for preparing the USB Disk.
1. Diskpart
2. List Disk
3. Select Disk 1 (Replace 1 with number reflecting your USB Drive)
4. clean
5. create partition primary
6. active
7. format fs=fat32 quick
8. assign

Now, a drive letter reflecting the drive should appear. Copy the bits from the DVD to the USB Stick.
If you get errors along the way, simply remove the drive and repeat the process.

After doing the steps, all you need to do is copy the bits on the DVD into the drive preserving the file structure. (Simply drag and drop in Windows Explorer)

Have fun.
/Dennis

#1 Hafiz on 1.15.2009 at 10:26 AM

Dennis,

You did not mention where to get the Win7. Is there another version to get it instead of microsoft web site?

#2 Desmond on 1.15.2009 at 11:39 PM

Hafiz,

You can download Windows 7 Beta from this website, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx. I doubt there is another place to download this other then Microsoft website.

#3 Dennis Chung on 1.16.2009 at 10:03 AM

You can download this from www.microsoft.com/springboard

Apart from download, you will also be able to find support forums for it.

To make it easy... here's the forum. social.technet.microsoft.com/.../w7itpro

If you evaluate and you allow me to talk about how you evaluate, i can get you a TechNet Subscribe for free.

#4 Scott on 1.20.2009 at 5:16 PM

Hi Dennis: Enjoyed the vid. I downloaded 7 and it is in an iso file. Is that all that is necessary to be on the USB drive?

#5 Dennis Chung on 1.20.2009 at 5:19 PM

Hi Scott,

yes that is all you need onto the USB Drive. You can also do so with Vista. Since 2005, this method was already possible, just that USB Sticks back then where much smaller and slower. :-)

#6 Scott on 1.20.2009 at 5:37 PM

Thinking about evaluating it on a few different platforms from a Netbook to an iMac. What's the Technet sub all about?

LOL, you may be interested to know your vid's wouldn't run in IE7 but when I used Firefox it sensibly pointed me to Media Player which was then fine.

#7 Cleber Marques on 1.25.2009 at 8:13 AM

Hi Dennis, congrats for this awsome tutorial.

Regards,

Cleber