How To Install Windows 7 from a USB Flash Drive

Install Windows 7 from a USB Key

Now that I have a large enough solid-state drive thanks to my recent update to the SATA II Mini 2 PCIe MLC 64GB SSD, I can now install Microsoft Windows 7 which takes a fair amount of drive space; neighborhood of 20GB. As I rutted around my things looking for my cobbled together external DVD drive I was thinking to myself “this has to be easier,” and it is.

Microsoft made Windows 7 with Netbooks in mind, which is nice considering they have only become really popular in the past two years. With the knowledge that Netbooks dont have optical drives they made Windows 7 such that it can be installed easily from a USB key. As with any other install, its all in the prep, so lets take a look at the things we will need. Depending on the Operating System (OS) you currently have the list is slightly different.

Windows XP: The Windows 7 disk ISO file, a Windows 7 serial number, 4GB USB (or larger) Thumb drive, WinRAR, and MBRWiz

Windows Vista: Windows 7 disk ISO file, a Windows 7 serial number, 4GB USB (or larger) Thumb drive, and WinRAR

Since some people decided to hold off on the joys of Vista and stayed with XP we will start there. If you havent already downloaded the Windows 7 disk ISO you might want to start that now; it will take a bit. While youre at it grab MBRWiz and the trial version of WinRAR.