Computer/tech hardware lifecycles

Yeah, I chose to avoid all of that. The performance gains from Windows 7 to Windows 8 would be too negligible to make it worth it.

Mind you, I'm coming from Vista.

 

I'm clearly a tool when it comes to more advanced shit.

I'm trying to load a Windows 7 img file to a USB flash drive, but my PC isn't reading it as bootable.

I've used the dd command in terminal on my Mac to "burn" the file to the drive. This is what I did for Ubuntu, but it doesn't seem to work with this Windows img.

In Windows, you can create a bootable USB drive for this very purpose using the cryptically entitled "Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool," but I don't have access to a Windows machine to run that.

It's like I'm stranded from Windows in Unix-type OSes.

I have Windows 7 right here, but I can't install it.

It looks like I'm going to need a Windows machine, a DVD burner, or a nerd.

 

Thanks for this. It looked hopeful. I followed the steps and everything seemed to load/extract onto the USB. It loaded the bootable part onto the USB, etc. But when I tried it again, I got the same problem. It isn't recognized as a bootable device.

It's frustrating because it seemed so easy to do this same thing in OS X for installing Ubuntu: Put it on a USB, boot it, install, done.

I've tried a few different methods with Windows 7, using both OS X and Ubuntu, and nothing seems to work. I don't know if it's an issue with the files, the USB drive, or my BIOS.

The extracted files are all sitting there on the USB drive, but my system won't boot from it.

I have a feeling that I'm close to getting it to work, but I'm just not nerdy enough to know what's going wrong.

 

For some reason my BIOS setup utility won't let me change anything in the boot order. If I go to the boot menu, I can select the USB drive to boot from, but it says it cannot find a boot device. (This second part is what I did to boot from the USB drive to install Ubuntu.) I'm assuming the problem is in how the USB drive is being formatted and/or how the files are being moved to the USB drive (specific to the Windows 7 files).

The files are there, but my PC won't boot from the drive.

I'm really curious to know if the Microsoft utility I mentioned above will simply make what I need. I just don't have access to a working copy of Windows to find out.

 

In theory, I could burn the Windows file onto a DVD (it's over 2.5 GB), but I don't have a DVD burner.

I thought this was going to be fairly straightforward. Maybe I should have ordered a disc.

 

Yeah.... I'm going to use my neighbours' Windows PC this weekend to access the official Microsoft tool.

 

The EULA police.

Sorry that is still a bunch of horseshit.

I'd say that someone who purchased a Dell and it died and they bought a Craigslist PC and installed a fresh Win7 on it isn't going to have MS EULA popo knocking on their door or even terminating their license.

Even OEM disc I buy says it is supposed to be sold with some part so that I can enjoy the discount. Doesn't mean it has to go with the machine I bought and installed the part.

Just because a lawyer said it doesn't mean a judge will agree with it in court.

 

Once upon a time, I had great luck with using old licenses of XP after a call to Microsoft. I don't think they really care that much.

 

They don't kick down your door. Windows just doesn't activate. OEM license keys are tied to the system they ship with, or the one they're activated on first. As far as I know this behaviour has never gone to court.

I'll be first in line to say it's pretty fucked up, but I've seen this bite people before. Just don't want anyone getting the wrong idea.

 

yeah because you know... YOLO