Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.

Elias Plastiras, PC World Australia
Oct 19, 2009 2:08 pm

http://www.pcworld.com/article/17391...nl_dnx_h_crawl

While the easiest way to install Windows 7 on a netbook is by booting
from an external DVD drive, it’s probably not worth spending $100 on a
drive that you won’t use more than a few times. It’s much more
economical to use a 4GB USB key, which will only set you back $10-15.
And it will also be quicker and more convenient!

But installing Windows 7 via a USB key isn’t as straightforward as it
seems. You can’t just copy the contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto the
USB key and then boot from it. Before you even think about copying
Windows 7 to the USB key, you must give it an active partition it and
make it bootable. As many of you will be upgrading to Windows 7 from
Windows XP, we will go through the steps required to prepare a USB key
on a Windows XP-equipped computer.

Note: Because Windows 7 can’t be installed as an upgrade over Windows
XP, you will need to use the ‘Custom’ installation option, which means
all your programs and data will be lost. For this reason, be sure to
back up all your data, programs, e-mail and configuration settings
before you attempt the installation.
Step 1: Format the USB key and make it active

Because a USB key is seen as a removable device in Windows XP, the
Disk Management console won’t let you partition it, nor make a
partition active. That option will be greyed out.

It won’t even let you format a USB key using the NTFS file system.

To get around this limitation, you have to use a third-party utility.

We’ve trawled through countless guides on the Web, and found that the
easiest way to format our USB key and give it an active partition is
to use HP’s USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Not only can this format
your USB key using the NTFS file system, it also automatically makes
the formatted NTFS partition an active one.

You can download the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from HP’s
Business Support Center.

To use it, simply select your USB key from the ‘Device’ list, change
the ‘File system’ to NTFS, select Quick Format and click on Start. The
whole process will take a few seconds.

HP’s USB Disk Storage Format Tool is simple to use and it will work
with most USB keys.

To confirm that your USB key has been correctly formatted, right-click
on My Computer, click on Manage, and then click on Disk Management.
Your USB key should now be listed with a ‘Healthy (Active)’ status,
and it should say NTFS next to the capacity.

Before we formatted the USB key with HP’s tool, the status simply read
‘Healthy’ and the file format was FAT32.

Step 2: Make it bootable

Now that the USB key has an active NTFS partition, the next step is to
make it bootable. For this step, you will need your Windows 7 DVD and
you will need to get your hands dirty in the Command Prompt.



Windows 7 uses a loading program called Bootmgr. The active partition
on the USB key needs to have code written to its boot sector that is
compatible with Bootmgr. This code can be written to the USB key by
using the bootsect.exe program that is present in the Boot folder of
the Windows 7 DVD. To extract this code, we have to use the Command
Prompt. From the Start menu select Run, type cmd and press Enter.

Once the Command Prompt is open, switch to your Windows 7 DVD by
typing the drive letter for your DVD drive, which is usually d:. Then,
you must type the following line:

boot\bootsect /nt60 j:

In this line, we are telling bootsect to use the /nt60 command to
write the compatible boot code to our USB drive, which is the j:
drive. Substitute the letter of your own USB drive for j:.

When this is successful, your screen will look like this:

Step 3: Copy Windows 7 to the USB key

Now that the USB key is prepared, all that remains is to copy the
contents of your Windows 7 DVD to the USB key.

The root folder of the Windows 7 DVD contains five folders and three
files, and the entire disk is 2.32GB.

This will take approximately 7min to copy, depending on the speed of
your computer and USB drive.
Step 4: Change your netbook’s boot device

In order to install Windows 7, your netbook will need to boot from
your USB key, rather than its hard drive. To change this, you need to
enter the BIOS and alter the boot settings. How this is accomplished
varies depending on the make and model of the netbook. In general, to
get into the BIOS you have to press either the DEL key or one of the
Function buttons. Look for a message on the screen when you first
switch on the netbook; often there will be an indication of which key
or key combination you should press in order to enter the BIOS.

Plug in your USB key, and switch on the netbook. Once in the BIOS, go
to the Boot menu and look for the ‘Boot Device Priority’ setting. In
this setting, change the ‘1st Boot Device’ option to ‘USB’. On some
netbooks (such as the MSI Wind 12 U200), it may even give you the name
of your USB key.

The MSI Wind 12 U200 shows us the actual name of our USB key.

Once you’ve changed the boot device, save your changes and exit the
BIOS. The netbook will now load from the USB key and proceed to
install Windows 7. When the installation reaches the point where it
restarts the system, be sure to remove the USB key, otherwise the
netbook will boot from the USB key once again and will restart the
installation.

Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>
>

No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!

I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The only
program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have 6GB to run
it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a netbook gonna run
this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your stuff in 2 GB of
RAM on an N270 Atom??

Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little Atom
netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!



--
Larry

I believe you are misunderstanding the requirements for Windows 7. I've been running the RC for months and it operates fine on the different machines I've tested - all below 6 GB of RAM.

But don't trust me, read this post (his specs were very low):

Windows 7 Install: How Much Ram, CPU, and Video do you Need?

Best of luck.

__________________
Layne P. Heiny / Administrator for Tux Reports Network

Please do not send private messages requesting technical support. Place your request in the proper forum and hopefully someone can help you.

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Insane Politics

Larry wrote:
> Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
> d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
>> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
>> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>>
>>
>
> No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!
>
> I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
> laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The only
> program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have 6GB torun
> it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a netbook gonnarun
> this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your stuff in 2 GB of
> RAM on an N270 Atom??
>
> Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little Atom
> netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!


It does not need that much space! I've successfully used Win7 (both the
beta and RC1) on a desktop PC with only 1 Meg of ram.


--

Roy Smith
Windows XP Pro SP3



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Roy Smith <rasmith1959@live.com> wrote in news:hc207o$62k$1@news.eternal-
september.org:

> It does not need that much space! I've successfully used Win7 (both the
> beta and RC1) on a desktop PC with only 1 Meg of ram.
>
>

How much RAM is left after the bloatware loads? My current Available =
493M out of 915M on this WinXPSP3 box with Xnews, its followup I'm typing
on, task manager, volume control and Windows Explorer running with the
regular load of Norton Internet suite at 47 processes total.

The Commit Charge is 501M (PF Usage), CPU sits on 0% pulsing to 2 or 4% as
I type to service it all. Something drove it to 7% once, probably Norton
checking in with Mother for updates.

What I saw wasn't anywhere NEAR this clean with 494MB RAM and 99% CPU left
for MY STUFF! This system is hosed, mostly, waiting for the 7200 RPM
pitifully slow internal and USB drives loading it down, waiting for data.



--
Larry

Re: "The only program running on it was the little store demo!"

The "little store demo" might be absolutely HUGE in terms of it's memory
footprint. It may well be caching it's entire video content in memory.


Larry wrote:
> Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
> d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
>> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
>> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>>
>>
>
> No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!
>
> I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
> laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The only
> program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have 6GB to run
> it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a netbook gonna run
> this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your stuff in 2 GB of
> RAM on an N270 Atom??
>
> Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little Atom
> netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!
>
>
>

Presumably that should be 1 Gig of RAM, for Win7. Now for CP/M-86, 1
Meg would work .......


Roy Smith wrote:

>
> It does not need that much space! I've successfully used Win7 (both the
> beta and RC1) on a desktop PC with only 1 Meg of ram.
>
>

"Larry" <noone@home.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9CAF4955F89Cnoonehomecom@74.209.131.13...
> Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
> d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
>> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
>> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>>
>>
>
> No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!
>
> I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
> laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The only
> program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have 6GB to
> run
> it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a netbook gonna
> run
> this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your stuff in 2 GB of
> RAM on an N270 Atom??
>
> Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little Atom
> netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!
>

You're posting bollocks yet again.

Windows 7 (there is no such product as Vista7) is actually smaller than
Vista. It would be quite impossible to run the 32 bit version of Windows 7
if it required the memory that you claim it requires.

Larry wrote:
> Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
> d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
>> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
>> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>>
>>
>
> No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!
>
> I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
> laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The only
> program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have 6GB to run
> it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a netbook gonna run
> this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your stuff in 2 GB of
> RAM on an N270 Atom??
>
> Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little Atom
> netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!
>
>
>
Hysterical nonsense...

I'm running 7 on a mediocre Celeron laptop (2GB RAM) and it runs faster
than XP did.

There is also suposed to be a cut-down version of 7 for Netbooks on the
way.

I've been running 7 on 3 PCs since the final beta and I'm very happy -
hard to find many faults.

The only real problem is IE8 which works fine until I open many tabs,
then it eats up all RAM and goes to HD paging, bringing everything to a
standstill.

IE8 is a bit of a dog.

Chrome flies in comparison.

Guy

"Bigguy" <bigguy******.com> wrote in message
news:7ko677F39t0hsU1@mid.individual.net...
> Larry wrote:
>> Ablang <ron916******.com> wrote in news:f66805b9-d447-4c3a-9e6c-
>> d31c74318703@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>>
>>> Get Windows 7 on Your Netbook in a Half-Hour
>>> Follow these steps to prepare a USB key on a Windows XP-equipped
>>> computer and install Windows 7 on your netbook in under 30 minutes.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> No, NO! Don't screw up a good working XP machine with Vista 7!
>>
>> I was fooling around with WinVista7 at the store today. A brand new
>> laptop....6GB of RAM had 3.6GB of free memory to run your stuff? The
>> only program running on it was the little store demo! You gotta have
>> 6GB to run it?! How crazy! A netbook only has 2GB, TOPS! How is a
>> netbook gonna run this WinVista7 crapware and have room to run your
>> stuff in 2 GB of RAM on an N270 Atom??
>>
>> Geez it keeps getting BIGGER! How stupid! Really stupid on a little
>> Atom netbook! The little netbook will be HOSED!
>>
> Hysterical nonsense...

Well that was, but I am hear to comment what you said. ;-)

> I'm running 7 on a mediocre Celeron laptop (2GB RAM) and it runs
> faster than XP did.

I am running Windows 7 on this Gateway MX6124 and an Asus EeePC 702G16.
And both are Celerons. This Gateway is 1.5GHz and the netbook is 900MHz.
And both runs Windows 7 slower than Windows XP. Worse, the CPU temp on
this Gateway is 25°F higher than it was under Windows XP. The netbook is
under clocked most of the time, so I don't see much of a temp rise.
Although it runs Windows 7 very much slower.

> There is also suposed to be a cut-down version of 7 for Netbooks on
> the way.

I believe they call it Windows 7 Starter Edition.

> I've been running 7 on 3 PCs since the final beta and I'm very happy -
> hard to find many faults.

Well Windows 7 won't let the administrator into the Document and
Settings and some Users sub-folders. I need to make some changes in
there. Not even a boot disk will let me in there.

My stream rippers that can rip anything doesn't work under Windows 7.
Maybe that is because of that new DRM stuff in Vista and Windows 7. As
you are not allowed to rip streams even if you are paying for the
streams to begin with. Nice, eh?

A bunch of my software gets caught by that UAC stuff. Screen dims and I
am asked if it is okay for this program to change my computer. What a
pain in the butt! Sure you can turn it off, but it turns off for
everything. So it is all or nothing.

> The only real problem is IE8 which works fine until I open many tabs,
> then it eats up all RAM and goes to HD paging, bringing everything to
> a standstill.
>
> IE8 is a bit of a dog.

Well I agree here. Although Firefox isn't much better.

> Chrome flies in comparison.

Chrome doesn't support older OS. And I don't trust anything that
requires up-to-date OS with all of that secret backdoor stuff in it.
Remember Windows 7 won't let me peek at the files, remember?

--
Bill
Windows7 Ultimate (build 7100)
Gateway MX6124 - 2G RAM

Bigguy <bigguy******.com> wrote in news:7ko677F39t0hsU1@mid.individual.net:

> Hysterical nonsense...
>
>

Historical caution. Name one product Micro$oft ever produced where ver 1.0
was ready for issue......we'll wait.

Remember Win ME?......just one example to get you started.....(c;]

Oh, I already have you started!....sorry.

--
Larry

"BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in news:hc72jl$a0j$1@news.eternal-
september.org:

> I am running Windows 7 on this Gateway MX6124 and an Asus EeePC 702G16.
> And both are Celerons. This Gateway is 1.5GHz and the netbook is 900MHz.
> And both runs Windows 7 slower than Windows XP. Worse, the CPU temp on
> this Gateway is 25øF higher than it was under Windows XP. The netbook is
> under clocked most of the time, so I don't see much of a temp rise.
> Although it runs Windows 7 very much slower.
>

Why would anyone "upgrade" a perfectly good-working portable computer
running an OS he controls to a locked up, media company controlled OS that
simply EATS THE BATTERY even worse than the OS he controls...not "them".

It just all seems so STUPID! (Of course, I'm the crazy one. I resisted
going from DOS 3.3 to Win 1.0 like it had the plague. It DID have the
plague! So has every version since 1 came out for the first few years!

Do you thing this phenomenon has changed with Vista Seven just by stripping
out some of the bloatware graphics? It's buggy as hell! All new code is
buggy as hell! They should GIVE alpha software away, not charge the
customers!

AAArrrrggghhh!! We never learn anything around computers....Human logic
doesn't exist!


--
Larry

Re: "Name one product Micro$oft ever produced where ver 1.0 was ready
for issue"

Windows XP; and Windows 98. Sure, there were updates and service packs.
There will ALWAYS be updates and service packs. That doesn't mean
that the version without them was seriously flawed AT THE TIME OF IT'S
RELEASE.

Re: "Remember Win ME?"

That's hitting below the belt. Not because it's incorrect, it's very
correct. But because it is, absolutely, the worst OS that MS has ever
released, and even MS will admit that. So was it awful? Of course it
was, which EVERYONE (even) MS recognizes. But, consequently, the only
thing that it proves is that MS can release a bad OS. Which is very
different from your assertion that it always or usually does.


Larry wrote:
> Bigguy <bigguy******.com> wrote in news:7ko677F39t0hsU1@mid.individual.net:
>
>> Hysterical nonsense...
>>
>>
>
> Historical caution. Name one product Micro$oft ever produced where ver 1.0
> was ready for issue......we'll wait.
>
> Remember Win ME?......just one example to get you started.....(c;]
>
> Oh, I already have you started!....sorry.
>

Barry Watzman <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in news:hcasft$iue$1
@news.eternal-september.org:

> That's hitting below the belt. Not because it's incorrect, it's very
> correct. But because it is, absolutely, the worst OS that MS has ever
> released, and even MS will admit that. So was it awful? Of course it
> was, which EVERYONE (even) MS recognizes. But, consequently, the only
> thing that it proves is that MS can release a bad OS. Which is very
> different from your assertion that it always or usually does.
>
>

I got my first taste on a netbook, a brand new Nokia Netbook/Sellphone
Edition, today at the Best Buy sellphone store in our mall! They had
unboxed it, thrown away its charging power supply/book/disks/box, it
seems because they couldn't find them, then put the raw Nokia new
netbook out on the shelf with its half-charged battery pack in
it....just waiting for some smartass like me to come along and PUSH THE
BUTTON!...(It's on the right side hidden in the black plastic.)

The initial installation took FOREVER...on and on and on after the
question and answer period of me typing in the blanks and clicking the
buttons.....on and on and LUNCH WAS LATE!

It finally booted then we had to go through the IE8 installation
procedure, the Windoze Media installation procedure, before we could try
to play a demo tune. The new Nokia $299 + 2 years of slavery and
servitude to ATT has the same HORRIBLE AUDIO as my Samsung NC10! What
IS different is there is NO ETHERNET PORT, just like the Verizon
netbook! Duhhh.... Nokia tried to hide it by putting in an HDMI video
port, instead....a poor excuse of a cover up. I don't know what else
was hobbled. My eyes hurt too much trying to see Tiny Vista7 behind the
GLOSSY MIRROR SCREEN and that was making my headache.

I was nice, by the way. I set the master password to "password" and
told three of the Best Buy Stooges so maybe one of them might remember
it because without it...it ain't goin nowhere!

Mark me unimpressed with both the Nokia sellphone netbook and Tiny
Vista7....yecch. The time has come for Ubuntu!...that time is NOW!


--
Larry

Somewhere on teh intarwebs BillW50 wrote:
> "Bigguy" <bigguy******.com> wrote in message
> news:7ko677F39t0hsU1@mid.individual.net...
>> Hysterical nonsense...
>
> Well that was, but I am hear to comment what you said. ;-)

Huh? For a man who types a lot you sure don't know how to say things in
English properly. Did you even go to high school?
--
Shaun.

"Give a man a fire and he's warm for the day. But set fire to him and he's
warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet, 'Jingo'.