Windows 7: Speed Up Installation time

you can greatly Cut down the time it takes to install windows by copying the contents of the dvd iso to a folder on the HDD and running setup from there

Thnx for the advice buddy! One point to your REP!

can it then install & format the drive without formating the isntallation files? I'm a friend of clean installs

You can if you have a second partition, or a second drive from which to run it.

Ken

I installed Windows 7 RTM from within Vista after downloading the ISO. I just clicked on 'setup.'

Did this method once b4. You can do it on your primary partition, if your doing the upgrade.

But, a flash drive is by far the quickest.

So yu basically copy all the files from the DVD (once we buy it in October) or copy the files from the mounted iso to a flash drive and use that for a clean isntall?

I thought Windows 7 does not install from a USB stick. I tried it with the RC 7100 (maybe i did soemthing wrong....). and there was that discussion if they enable that option for netbooks. That makes me think the flashdrive wouldn't work.

I assume you mean one of the USB sticks by flashdrive

Yes, you can do a clean install or an upgrade from a flash drive that has at least 4GB of free space. These are the necesary instructions to do so correctly:

Launch the DiskPart utility by typing diskpart at the Start Menu.
Then run the list disk command to check the status of your drive.
Now run select disk 1 where the "1" is actually the corresponding number of your USB drive.
Run clean.
Once the thumb drive is clean, you can run create partition primary.
Now make the partition active by entering active
Then you need to set up the file system as Fat32 by running format fs=fat32 quick (quick, of course, specifies that you want to perform a quick format to speed up the process).
Entering the assign command gives the USB drive a drive letter, making it easy to access from Windows Explorer
Then you can copy everything from the extracted Windows 7 installation DVD onto the USB key (a simple drag and drop will do).
Now you can insert the thumb drive into the system you want to install Windows 7 onto and boot the system. The installation will now proceed as usual—but faster.

Make sure your computer can boot a USB device in the bios for clean install. If you can't this method will still work for upgrade.

Source:Technet

I use method One described on the "How-To" by Brink.

USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create