Installing Win 7 from a thumbdrive/flash drive?

There was a thread here about a Microsoft utility for installing 7 from a thumbdrive. Now I can't find it-- searched for "thumbdrive". Since this forum requires you to wait 40 seconds between searches, it will take an hour to search for every possible term. Can someone please post a link?

 

or use google externally.....

 

here is a link to the tool:
http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool

 

Thanks. Googling turned up some command line tool instead

 

But it's easier than on Vista. You do not have to write a bootsector on it anymore. Just format in FAT32 and put all the files in the boot directory.

 

Bah.. Now that page is down. I wish I had downloaded when it was still up.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/ne...windows-7-tool-after-gpl-violation-claims.ars

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...l/thread/6a96793c-63fd-4882-b8c2-59f327d31f10

Alternative method
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx

 

do this!:

Format theFlash Drive

Run CMD.EXE and type the following. Note: This set of commands assumes that the USB flash drive is addressed as "disk 1". you should double check that by doing a list of the disks (type "list disk") before cleaning it. If you have multiple hard drives, like an SDFlash drive or a Multibay drive, you could end up wiping your second drive using this command.

diskpart
select disk 1
clean

Next, create partition primary

select partition 1
active
format fs=fat32
assign
exit

Then, copy Windows 7 DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive
Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows 7 DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive - PRESUMING that your CD/DVD-ROM Drive is DriveD and your USB Flash Drive is DriveE.

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\

And that's it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows 7 installed quickly before then let's see how you like it now. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields.

 

Bah, these instructions need to be stickied.

 

just like on vista..

 

I concur, a comprehensive sticky guide or inclusion in one of the main conglomerate threads at the top would be great.

 

For Win7, I just format it in FAT32 and copied the files over, I don't remember this working for Vista. Or I may be wrong...

 

This didn't work for me with Win 7. I had to add the boot sector to my USB stick.

 

most likely because the partition was still marked active from the last time (a.k.a. vista, when it at first didnt' work, and you then used diskpart or something similar to make it work).

and no need for fat32, i made it ntfs..

 

Or merge into into the Windows 7 main thread.

 

guys i posted instructions they are tried and tested works u can install and be logged into new system in less then 15 mins