Installing Windows 7 Tips

Netbooks are all the rage nowadays, with manufacturers rolling out new netbooks at an incredible rate. Windows 7 is a popular choice for installing on netbooks, as it is designed and optimized for low-powered computers like netbooks. However, one limitation of netbooks is that they do not have DVD drives, and this makes installing a new OS on them a bit challenging. Fear not: armed with a computer running Vista or Windows 7 and a USB hard disk or thumb drive, you can install Windows 7 on a netbook easily. Here's how.

Installing Windows 7 Using a USB Hard Drive

You can install Windows 7 using a USB hard drive. The following steps show you how to prepare your existing USB hard drive for installing Windows 7:

1. Connect your USB hard disk to your computer.
2. Launch the Disk Management application available in Windows.
   Note In Windows Vista, the Disk Management tool is found under Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Computer Management. In Windows 7, type "disk management" in the Start menu to launch it.
3. Locate the USB hard drive and right-click it. Select Shrink Volume....
4. You will be asked the size in MB to shrink. Enter an amount greater than 3,000 (3 GB).
5. When the shrinking is done, right-click the new partition and select New Simple Volume.
6. The New Simple Volume wizard will appear. Click Next.
7. Specify the size for the new volume: 15,000. Click Next.
8. Assign a new drive letter-use the default drive letter assigned. Click Next.
9. Format the drive using FAT32. Click Next.
10. To complete the wizard, click Finish.
11. Right-click the new partition and select Mark Partition as Active to make it as the bootable partition.
12. Copy all the files from the Windows 7 installation disk onto the newly created drive.
13. If your Windows 7 comes as an ISO image, you can download third-party applications to mount the ISO image as a DVD drive. The application I used is Virtual CloneDrive. You can download the free Virtual CloneDrive from http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html.

You can now connect the USB hard disk to your computer and boot from the USB drive