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  • First published by (Microsoft Partner)
  • When: 2 Mar 2010 2:10 PM
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  • When: 17 Jul 2013 11:33 AM
  • Revisions: 34
  • Comments: 41
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Wiki  >  TechNet Articles  >  How to Deploy Windows 7 from a USB Drive

How to Deploy Windows 7 from a USB Drive

How to Deploy Windows 7 from a USB Drive

It is possible to copy Windows 7 images to a USB flash drive and install Windows 7 onto a PC from it. This also applies to the Windows Vista, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 product families.

This topic is a how to.
Please keep it as clear and simple as possible. Avoid speculative discussions as well as a deep dive into underlying mechanisms or related technologies.

Table of Contents

 

The simplest method is to copy the DVD files or extract an official ISO. It is also possible to use the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to customize an image and deploy this via USB drive.

End users could use Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. Please ensure that the USB flash drive has a minimum capacity of 4GB.

Basic Overview

  1. Using diskpart:
    1. Clean USB drive
    2. Create primary partition
    3. Format partition as NTFS
    4. Set partition as active
  2. Copy DVD files or extract official ISO onto the drive
  3. Boot PC from USB and install

Diskpart Commands

This process will prepare the USB drive for the Windows 7 disk files. In normal Windows GUI format tool, the Allocation Unit Size must be set to 4096 bytes. This works with some USB drives and fails in some USB drives. Therefore, diskpart is used.

Please note: This will delete all data on the drive, so ensure all files are backed up before continuing.

  1. Open the command prompt
  2. Type: diskpart
  3. Type: list disk
  4. This will show all connected disks, their disk numbers, connection status and disk size
  5. Using the sizes, determine which disk is your USB drive and remember its disk number (i.e. Disk 2)
  6. Type the following commands: (where X is the disk number of your USB drive)
    1. sel dis X
    2. clean
    3. cre par pri  
    4. active
    5. format fs=ntfs  Quick
    6. exit

Once the disk is formatted and prepared, you can copy the Windows 7 installation files onto the disk, whether this is from the DVD, ISO or a modified image.


For Deploying Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 on USB Stick

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee731893%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

Video on the same topic

Video on how this is done on Edge - http://edge.technet.com/Media/Installing-Win7-using-a-USB-Stick/.



See more

Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx



See Also

 


Other Languages

This article is also available in the following languages:

Italian (it-IT)

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Wiki - Revision Comment List(Revision Comment)
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Comments
  • 5 Dec 2012 6:04 PM

    Richard Mueller edited Revision 29. Comment: Removed zero in <a name> tag in heading in HTML so TOC works properly

  • 27 Nov 2012 8:04 AM

    Fernando Lugão Veltem edited Revision 26. Comment: removed (en-US) from the title

  • 2 Oct 2012 4:43 PM

    Mr M R WEBB edited Revision 25. Comment: Correction to Instruction 6 had an invalid parameter (NOT   format fs=fat32  Quick Format)

  • 10 Jan 2012 3:39 PM

    Luigi Bruno edited Revision 20. Comment: Edited article's title and tags list. Added the "Other Languages" section.

  • 10 Jan 2012 3:02 PM

    Luigi Bruno edited Revision 19. Comment: Added the "How to" Wiki Message Template.

  • 9 Jan 2012 11:41 PM

    M.Abdelhamid edited Revision 18. Comment: Add Tags

  • 9 Jan 2012 8:48 PM

    Nevin Janzen edited Revision 17. Comment: Tags Edit

  • 22 Mar 2011 11:35 AM

    Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 11. Comment: Removing those messages because they mess up SEO and the intro text displayed in search results.

  • 12 May 2010 1:41 AM

    jakobbg edited Revision 8. Comment: Added a note tag, added punctation.

  • 28 Apr 2010 7:41 PM

    DChung edited Revision 6. Comment: Added a Video link to Edge on the same topic

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Comments
  • Posted by
    on 2 Mar 2010 2:17 PM

    Gerard Boyers [MSFT] edited Revision 1. Comment: +commands

  • Posted by
    on 2 Mar 2010 2:26 PM

    Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 2. Comment: Added "How to" template.

  • Posted by
    on 24 Mar 2010 7:11 AM

    Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 4. Comment: Added a "See Also" link.

  • Posted by
    on 28 Apr 2010 7:41 PM

    DChung edited Revision 6. Comment: Added a Video link to Edge on the same topic

  • Posted by
    on 12 May 2010 1:41 AM

    jakobbg edited Revision 8. Comment: Added a note tag, added punctation.

  • Posted by
    on 22 Mar 2011 11:35 AM

    Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 11. Comment: Removing those messages because they mess up SEO and the intro text displayed in search results.

  • Posted by
    on 31 Aug 2011 3:25 PM

    Very concise and easy to understand.

  • Posted by
    on 16 Sep 2011 9:46 PM

    If adding a customized wim file that is greater than 4gb. then the usb should be formated ntfs.

  • Posted by
    on 21 Sep 2011 1:04 PM

    Great!!

    Very simple.

    Tks

  • Posted by
    on 24 Sep 2011 6:53 PM

    This method also works for the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

  • Posted by
    on 22 Oct 2011 2:29 AM

    It is a very good article. I Hope it will even works with W8..

  • Posted by
    on 22 Oct 2011 4:00 AM

    yep yep - i just tried on the win dev 8 on stick

  • Posted by
    on 30 Nov 2011 4:36 AM

    Very useful article!

  • Posted by
    on 11 Dec 2011 11:50 PM

    Thanks Ed

    Great Artical

  • Posted by
    on 19 Dec 2011 9:29 AM

    Consider that not all USB, work correctly with the application, store.microsoft.com/.../ISO-Tool. In some models, do not burn well, I comporbado USB 5 marks. In contrast with Diskpark there is no problem. A greeting. John.

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