Bootable USB Drive With Windows XP/Vista/7/8 Using WinToFlash[Tutorial]

In this tutorial we will cover using WinToFlash to create a bootable USB drive with Windows XP/Vista/7 on it.

WinToFlash Home Page
http://wintoflash.com/

With the low cost of flash memory taking over the computer industry, optical media drives like CD/DVD drives are going the way of the floppy disk.

CD/DVD drives use much needed battery life in laptops, and take up valuable space in the case.

Many modern computers, and pretty much every Netbook, don't come with a CD/DVD drive, so your only option is to install from a USB drive.

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In this tutorial we will cover using WinToFlash
to create a bootable USB drive with Windows
XP/Vista/7 on it. With the low cost of flash
memory taking over the computer industry,
optical media drives like CD/DVD drives are
going the way of the floppy disk. CD/DVD drives
use much needed battery life in laptops, and
take up valuable space in the case. Many modern
computers, and pretty much every Netbook,
don’t come with a CD/DVD drive, so your
only option is to install from a USB drive.
Let’s download and install Win2Flash. Open
a web browser like Internet Explorer. In the
“Address Bar” enter “wintoflash.com”,
and press enter. Click the American flag for
English. On the WinToFlash Home Page, click
the “Download” link. Click the link to
download the latest version. When asked what
you want to do with the file, click the “Save
as” button. Select the Desktop and click
the “Save” button. WinToFlash does not
contain an installer. The download is just
a zip file containing all of the files. We
will create a new folder in the program files
folder, and a desktop shortcut for it. When
the download finishes you will see the “Novicorp
WinToFlash” zip file on the desktop. Double-click
to open it. Click the “Extract all files”
button. Click the “Browse” button. Expand
“Computer”, “Local Disk (C:)”, and
click the “Program Files” folder once
to select it. Click the “Make New Folder”
button. Name the new folder “WinToFlash”,
and click the “OK” button. Click the “Extract”
button. The files will be extracted to the
new folder located at “C:\Program Files\WinToFlash\”.
When the extraction finishes, it will open
this new folder with the files in it. Let’s
create a desktop shortcut so we don’t have
to open this folder every time we want to
run WinToFlash. Right-click on the “WinToFlash.exe”
file, and select “Create Shortcut”. It
will create a new shortcut named “WinToFlash.exe
- Shortcut”. Let’s rename this. Right-click
and select “rename”. Enter the new name
of “WinToFlash”, and press enter. Right-click,
and select “Cut”. Right-click on the desktop,
and select “Paste”. We
need to find out what drive is the USB drive
and which one has our Windows media in it.
Make sure you have your Windows DVD or ISO
image. Click the Windows “Start” button,
then “Computer”. The Windows DVD is in
the G drive here. The USB Drive is “Removable
Disk (E:)”. There are already files on the
USB drive. You can either format the disk
yourself if you like, or just let WinToFlash
format the drive automatically. Let’s open
WinToFlash and create a bootable Windows USB
drive. You can create a Windows XP,Vista,
or 7 USB installer drive. For this tutorial
we are creating a Windows 7 Ultimate USB drive.
Double-click on the “WinToFlash” shortcut
we just created on the desktop. On the “Open
File - Security Warning” window, deselect
“Always ask before opening this file”,
and click the “Run” button. On the “first
start wizard”, click the “Next” button.
On the “End user license agreement” click
to select “I accept EULA”, and click the
“Next” button. On the “Key file”,
click the “Next” button. On the “Commercial”
screen, click the “Next” button. On the
“Finished” screen, click the “Next”
button. On the WinToFlash application window,
click the “Windows Setup transfer Wizard”
button. On the “WinToFlash Wizard”, click
the “Next” button. Click the “Select”
button for the “Windows files path:” On
the “Browse For Folder” window that opens.
Expand “Computer”, then select “CD Drive
(G)”, and click the “OK” button. The
“USB Drive” is already set to the “E:”
drive, which is our USB drive. Click the “Next”
button. On the “Windows License Agreement”
window that opens, click the radio button
to accept “I do accept the terms of the
license agreement”, and click the “Continue”
button. The “Format warning” window will
open, stating that you are about to erase
all of the data on the disk. After ensuring
you don’t need any of the files on the USB
drive, click the “Continue” button. You
will see the “Transferring Windows setup”
screen, as WinToFlash sets up the USB drive
to install Windows 7. The setup time will
vary depending on your hardware, but should
be less than 20 minutes for Windows 7, and
much shorter for Windows XP. You
should now have the necessary knowledge to
download and install WinToFlash, and create
a bootable USB drive with Windows on it.