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I downloaded the .iso of Windows 7 and would now like to install it as my main OS. However I can't because I don't have a DVD Burner, a 2+ GB USB Drive, or a external HDD (or extra HDD). So how can I install Windows 7?

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I would recommand buying a DVD burner, it's now under 30$. – Michael B. May 24 '09 at 23:21
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I suggest using WDS, if not. it belongs on superuser ;-) – Nick Kavadias Nov 7 '09 at 1:12

8 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Is the system running an existing version of Windows? Then you should just be able to extract the contents of the iso (say with winrar or virtual clone drive) to another partition and run the setup.exe. Here's a guide.

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FYI, yes, Win7 allows upgrade installs over Vista and prior versions of Win7. See blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/04/07/… – quux May 25 '09 at 0:31
Cool, didn't know that ^^ – Oskar Duveborn May 25 '09 at 1:46
I did the upgrade from Vista to 7 and every single one of my programs worked. I figured a few wouldn't, but everything went without a hitch. Thanks Oskar Duveborn! – Lucas McCoy May 25 '09 at 12:57
up vote 4 down vote

Spend the $10 on a 4gb Thumb Drive. there is a point where common sense needs to kick in. Alternatively, iirc VMWare has an unsupported option to mount a physical drive, you can install to that, then change your boot drive in the bios.

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up vote 2 down vote

You could do it via PXE booting, but that requires at least one other computer on your network. It would also take you several hours to set it up.

USB sticks are cheap; you should be able to get a 4GB or 8GB stick for just a few euros. Much cheaper than spending all your time trying to set up a PXE boot environment for a single installation.

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up vote 1 down vote

You can install it on a virtual machine by mounting the .iso file as a DVD drive. I don't know if that's an option, but I always do it this way.

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I want to actually install it on my system. I'm going to edit my question to include this. Thanks. – Lucas McCoy May 24 '09 at 23:13
up vote 1 down vote
  1. Copy whole mounted win7ult dvd on D: (not C:)

  2. Type in cmd:

    reagentc /boottore >NUL (restart automatic)

  3. In WinRE go to command prompt and type

    D:\GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD\sources\setup.exe
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up vote 0 down vote

If you copy the contents of the ISO to your hard drive, you can do an upgrade install.

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This assumes you're running Vista SP1. Earlier Windows OSs (such as XP) or non-Windows OSs (such as Linux) can't upgrade. – Cody Hatch May 25 '09 at 1:53
up vote 0 down vote

if your on windows xp get daemon tools lite mount and it will start setup.

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up vote -1 down vote

I think if you have an extra Hard Drive, you can make it bootable, and then just copy the contents of the DVD onto the hard drive, and boot from there. If the Autostart file doesn't run automatically, you can run it manually.

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I don't have an extra HDD. – Lucas McCoy May 24 '09 at 23:14

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