When you fire up WinToFlash, you might see a warning that WinToFlash is not supported on your operating system. You can right-click this file and pin it to either the Start menu or the Quick Launch menu for easy access. One of those files is WinToFlash, which is the executable file. Within this directory are a number of files and subdirectories. Once the file is unzipped, you will see a new directory called Novicorp WinToFlash XXX (where XXX is the release number). What you do is download the zip file from the main page and unzip the file. There really isn't an "installation" to be done with WinToFlash. Now, let's take a look at how this is done. For Windows XP, obviously, you can get away with a much smaller drive (1GB will do). To be safe you will want a 4GB flash drive. To successfully copy Windows 7 to a USB drive you will need approximately 2.37GB of space. But do this after WinToFlash does its job, or you will overwrite the file.Īnother item to note is the size of the USB drive. One possibility is to write the code key on a file and save that file on the flash drive. So, you are going to have to come up with a system to store your keys. With a smaller flash drive, you don't have space to write the code key on the drive itself. When using a CD/DVD you can always write the activation code key on the disk - so you would have to lose the disk to lose the code. Now there is one small problem that goes along with this. So why wouldn't you migrate your installation disks to flash drives? Flash drives are reliable, portable (I have multiple flash drives on my keychain), and work faster than CD/DVD drives. And we all know that CD/DVDs get lost, scratched, and cracked and that CD drives go bad. This blog post is also available in PDF format in a free TechRepublic download.īut why would you want to transfer your installation media from CD/DVD to a flash drive? If you want to install a different operating system on your netbook, you are going to have to have a USB drive ready with installation files. And better still, WinToFlash also preps the USB drive for you and sets the drive as bootable. This tool can take your Windows 7 (Vista or XP) installation CD/DVDs and pull the contents onto a USB drive. One such tool that I frequently use is WinToFlash by Novicorp. Fortunately, for those who wish to stay away from the command line, there are GUI tools that can tackle the same task. Of course, not everyone wants to use the command line. In his recent Windows blog, Greg Schultz wrote about how you can "Configure a USB Flash Drive to Be a Windows 7 Installation Platform." This handy and reliable method uses the command-line tool DiskPart.
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