Installing Windows 7 Without Using DVD/USB Drive [Method 1]
Posted January 14, 2009 – 5:52 pm in: Windows 7, Windows 7 GuidesAfter reading our popular “How to install Windows 7 Using USB Drive” readers are sending many mails asking me to write a guide on “Installing Windows 7 without using a DVD or USB Drive”. So after reading those mails I am starting this guide. I hope this guide will help many users to install Windows 7 on their PCs and Netbooks.
So you can continue this guide in keeping these three points:
* By using this guide you will be able to Install Windows 7/Vista, if you don’t have a DVD drive as well.
* You can also use this guide if you don’t have a 4GB USB stick. If you have a 4 GB+ USB drive then try out my “Install Windows 7 using USB drive” for a quick installation.
* We are not using either CD/DVD drive in this guide so you can even use this method to install this method for Netbooks.
There are two ways to install Windows 7/Vista without using A DVD or USB. The first one is using VPC (Virtual PC) and the second one is mounting an ISO file using free tools like Daemon tools or Virtual Clone Drive.
Method 1: Installing Windows 7 Without Using a DVD or USB via Virtual PC method
In VPC method, the only limitation is VPC doesn’t support 64-bit. So you need to use 32-bit guest OS only. That is, you can install VPC on 64-bit OS but you can’t install 64-bit OS using VPC.
1. Download and install Virtual PC from here.
2. Run the Virtual PC software. To do this, type Virtual PC in Vista Start menu search box and hit enter.
3. Click on “New” option and click “Next” to continue.
4. Select “Create a virtual machine” option from the available three options. I prefer this option as this lets you customize as you like. Click “Next”.
5. Here, type a name for the new virtual machine. The file is automatically saved to the My Virtual Machines folder. To save it to a different location, use the “Browse” button.
6. Select the operating system that you would like to install using Virtual PC from the drop down box. In this tutorial we choose “Other” since Windows 7 option is not available in VPC as of now . After selecting the operating system, click “Next”.
7. As you are installing Windows 7 you can’t use the default memory allocation which is just 128 MB. I recommend at least 512 MB of memory allocation for Windows 7 to get a decent performance.
8. In the next screen, select “A new virtual hard disk” and once again “click” button.
9. In this step, browse the location where you want to create a virtual hard disk and specify a name for the virtual hard drive. Also don’t forget to specify the size of the Virtual Hard Drive. I prefer at least 16GB (Recommended by Microsoft).
10. Click finish button.
11. This will open a small window called “Virtual PC Console”. Click on “Start” button to start the actual process.
12. Once you click Start button, you will see Windows Console and also you will see “Insert boot media and click ” message in few seconds.(Generally we use Windows DVD to boot and install Windows but here you can simply use the ISO file without burning it into DVD) .
13. So click on CD and then select Capture ISO image and browse to the Windows 7 ISO file location and hit enter. Within few seconds you will see the Windows 7 installation process in the console. Once it’s started you can follow the simple procedure to install Windows 7.
Note that you can’t use upgrade option and also can’t change the location of Windows 7 installation during the setup since you are using virtual hard drive to install Windows 7.
You can also refer my “Windows 7 installation procedure” guide if you have doubts about the installation. Don’t forget to read how to create bootable USB guides.
Below is the another way of installing Windows 7 without using a DVD or USB
Method 2: Installing Windows 7 without using a DVD or USB via direct method.
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16 Comments
If i set up the Virtual hard disk to a portable hard drive, will it still run okay? Will there be any problems with that?
Does this work with XP?
Will this mess up anything with my current Operating system?
I have 512mb memory, will w7 really run okay on my computer?
It will work but bit slow.
hey i got vista now. and it sucks ! so i want windows 7 but when i wanna install this virtual PC 2007 stuff i can only get it for xp…. do i really have to install XP befor installing 7 ?
now finaly i got all that junk…. now i found out that i need the ISO file…… somebody help !
it says bootmgr is missing plzzzzz help
It worked like a charm!! Great POST!!
What I would like to know is:
Will I have to run Windows 7 in a virtual environment every time? Or is there a way to get XP off after 7 is installed so that you can boot straight to 7 and not have to boot to xp then run 7 in a virtual environment. I have an external but the desktop i want to install on keeps giving me the file: \boot\bcd 0xc000000e error which im thinking means that the bios can not boot from a usb drive that big.
kek.
This method is just for testing windows 7, so this method is pointless for most users unless “virtualpc” provides the tools to creating proxies of real hardrives.
Hi,
copy whole mounted win7ult dvd on d: (not c:)
type in cmd:
reagentc /boottore >NUL (restart automatic)
in winRE go to comman prompt and type
D:\GRMCULFRER_EN_DVD\sources\setup.exe
i have the files from a W7 64 bit ultimate. i have it in my pc. my pc runs a winXP. i don’t have an optical drive. will this method work for me. if not can someone give me proper step by step direction on how to do it.
Fix for systems without USB boot set network boot to enable and set primary boot to external device….Enjoy!
cool,, awesome etc.. i had a DVD Drive but it broke, i have a 4GB mp4 player i could also store it in there but in this method i donot have to lose my mp4′s memory, this is an awesoome, good, cool, super, out standind etc… method
is it neccesary to hav a dvd/cd to make a pendrive bootable?? can’t we copied winddows 7 from someone machine to our usb and den carried out installation ??…i mean i can’t able to follow ur step 5 because m nt having a dvd /cd of windows 7…m having my windows 7 on a 4gb pendrive..wat shud i do sir??
When I was a kid, I used to reinstall my windows using norton. I entered norton directly from ms dos and then I just entered the folder where my windows was copied and installed it.
yara help me out ..i have a 4 gb kingston pin drive and it is password protectd. now i dont know about its method and password ..how i can format it as it is giving the mesage that the drive is right protected…i also try some softwares and even command prompt but always the smae mesage is there
..plz plz help me