Microsoft tool for installing Windows 7 from USB drive

[Teerex]

Microsoft willl soon provide a tool that will make it possible to move a downloaded upgrade disc to a USB key or drive, which will enable installation on netbooks without CD/DVD drives.

Windows 7 for Netbooks - Buy and download from Microsoft Store

   Information

You can get the tool here:

http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

 

[mickey megabyte]

i expect windows 8 may be download or usb only...

*edit*can any pre-usb pcs run 7? (but i suppose the thing is having spare usb slots?)

 

[logicearth]

*edit*can any pre-usb pcs run 7? (but i suppose the thing is having spare usb slots?)

Probably not...most pre-usb PCs the BIOS is unaware of them and cannot boot from them. You would probably need some floppy-and-usb combination.

 

[Ken Blake]

Microsoft willl soon provide a tool that will make it possible to move a downloaded upgrade disc to a USB key or drive, which will enable installation on netbooks without CD/DVD drives.

Do you know anything about which netbooks this will work on? How about my EEE 1008HA?

 

[dmillergv]

Ken,
Used to read your "stuff" on the MS news groups when I lived in Green Valley.

Win 7 works quite well on the netbooks regardless of the flavor.
There are programs available that create USB bootable "stick" drives from your ISO files or a distribution DVD. The one I have used is called "A Bootable USB" and there are plenty of tutorials if you want to do it from scratch".
I once saw somewhere "Google is your friend."
This particular forum is one of the best.
D i c k MIller

 

[apuntsel]

I have used this method to create a bootable Windows 7 USB key

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2432-usb-windows-7-installation-key-drive-create.html

 

[poin2]

I don't see any "tool" that they're providing.

They're simply pointing out that they're selling a downloadable version (that you can technically download directly to a USB drive for easy install to a netbook).

 

[Fliplip]

Do you know anything about which netbooks this will work on? How about my EEE 1008HA?

Cant see why not. Ive had it running on my EEE PC901 for a few months. I do all my installs off a bootable SD card these days.
With my 901 i just pop the card in and around 10 mins later my netbook is up and running. All the drivers are built in other than the ACPI driver but even that might be in W7 by now.

Dave.

 

[Ken Blake]

Do you know anything about which netbooks this will work on? How about my EEE 1008HA?

Cant see why not. Ive had it running on my EEE PC901 for a few months. I do all my installs off a bootable SD card these days.
With my 901 i just pop the card in and around 10 mins later my netbook is up and running. All the drivers are built in other than the ACPI driver but even that might be in W7 by now.

Dave.

Thanks very much. I'll give this a try when I can.

 

[Ken Blake]

Ken,
Used to read your "stuff" on the MS news groups when I lived in Green Valley.

Win 7 works quite well on the netbooks regardless of the flavor.
There are programs available that create USB bootable "stick" drives from your ISO files or a distribution DVD. The one I have used is called "A Bootable USB" and there are plenty of tutorials if you want to do it from scratch".
I once saw somewhere "Google is your friend."
This particular forum is one of the best.
D i c k MIller

Thanks, Dick. I remember your name too. I'm still active on the newsgroups, but I'm new to these forums.

 

[Teerex]

...& here is the tool.

 

[DrWho]

I tried it...... but it told me my ISO was not a real ISO.
What a bunch of crap!

:sarc:

 

[Night Hawk]

i expect windows 8 may be download or usb only...

*edit*can any pre-usb pcs run 7? (but i suppose the thing is having spare usb slots?)

Depends on what you mean by "pre usb"? Windows 98 introduced USB 1.0, 1.1 there. So you can easily be looking at a P II 586 or older with only some 32-64mb of memory upto about 512mb for an early P III or AMD K5 system. But most systems came with usb ports from 2000 on being one of the latest rechnologies at the time.

PCI to USB adapter cards became available from that point on for adding ports onto an old system that lacked them. If you download 7 onto a system that lacks ports the alternative option would be using a program like VirtualClone Drive to mount the iso on a virtual dvd drive. You would need to mount this from a separate partition however.

Here I can easily try the tool on one of the RC images to see if it work with those at all. Meanwhile I now have a new usb key made up for the 64bit RC as the images here show how fast the tool works. One thing to know is making sure the usb flash drive is free of any data! The tool lacks the ability to format the device first!

 

[chuckr]

i expect windows 8 may be download or usb only...

Can you provide a link to download the windows 8 ?

 

[Night Hawk]

I posted one news report on supposed details regarding the next version not even in the Alpha stage at this point over on the W8 while I suspect W8 will also be available on dvd just like 7 is now for separate purchase when the time comes. Windows 8 Details Emerge - Windows 8 Forums

At this time however the emphasis is on the latest version just released. Time will show what will be seen for the next and then the next and so forth there.

 

[DrWho]

I spend way too much time on the internet reading many different forums and this is the first time I've heard anyone mention booting a netbook (or any PC, for that matter) from an SD Flash Memory Card.

I've done it myself, and even talked about it on other forums, when discussing using bootable flash drives, but this is the first time I've seen anyone else writing about it.
I'm gratified to know I'm not alone.

I've been using the HP flash drive format tool for a long time now, to make both Thumb Drives and SD Flash cards bootable. It works like a breeze!
Anyone new to this concept and wanting the HP Format tool, can download it here:
USBFormat.exe - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

It does require that you tell it where to get the three DOS boot files. :huh:
I just point it at a bootable (DOS) floppy disk, but for those with no such thing available, the three DOS boot files can also be downloaded here:
MSDos.exe - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage
(already downloaded 695 times)

Just unpack the three DOS files into a new folder and point the Format Tool to that folder. It will get the dos boot files and put them on the Flash Drive, thus making it boot to DOS.

A certain amount of DOS knowledge is very helpful when doing things like this. Creating an Autoexec.bat file to either run a program or print a menu on the screen is helpful too. But, that's food for another thread.
Sorry! I didn't mean to get off-topic.

Cheers Mates!
The Doctor

 

[Thung]

Having Win7 on my HP Mini 2140 installed after I upgraded it to 2GB RAM.
Win7 works great

 

[n0th1n9]

I used Ultra ISO to install the Windows Seven ISO to a USB flash drive and was able to install Windows Seven in seven minutes. (timed from pressing of the next button after partion selection to creating a Windows logon user)

 

[Night Hawk]

The idea of the tool is not to install 7 onto the flash drive but to turn the flash drive into a bootable installation media. This then allows you to install 7 onto the netbook itself.

Now for Dos files I would have to dig out the old 6.22 floppies in order to install 3.1 on an old ide drive once formatted to Fat16.