How to create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive

Looking for a quicker way to install Windows 7 than via DVD? Try this.

The USB flash drive has replaced the floppy disk drive as the best storage medium for transferring files, but it also has its uses as a replacement for CDs and DVDs. USB drives tend to be higher in capacity than disc media, but since they are more expensive, they cannot (yet) really be used as a replacement. There are reasons why you would, however, choose a USB device over a DVD disc, and bootable software is definitely one of them. Not only is it faster to copy data such as setup files from a USB drive, but during usage the access times are also significantly faster. Therefore, installing something like Windows 7 will work that much faster from a USB drive than from a DVD (and of course, is particularly useful for the PCs without an optical drive; this isn't something we should just leave for the pirates to enjoy).

This guide will show you two different ways to create a USB flash drive that works just like a Windows 7 DVD. In order to follow this guide, you'll need a USB flash drive with at least 4GB of free space and a copy of the Windows 7 installation disc.

Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool
You are normally given this tool when you purchase from the online Microsoft Store.


The easiest way to turn a USB flash drive into a bootable Windows 7 installer is by using the tool Microsoft offers, cunningly named the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. To get started, download the installer [exe] from Microsoft.com and follow the basic steps to put it onto your computer; you can put it on the computer you plan to install Windows 7 on or another one, it doesn't matter.


Once it is installed, it should create an icon on your desktop, so double-click that to open. If you can't find it, use the search function in the Start Menu with a keyword like "USB." Launching it should give you the above screen, and step one is to find the Windows 7 .ISO file. The tool only accepts .ISO images, so we recommend that you convert yours if it's in a different DVD image format.


Step two is straightforward: simply choose USB device.


In step three, all you have to do is make sure that you are choosing the correct USB device. If you have other data on the device, move it to your hard drive, another USB device, or somewhere else before proceeding.


The tool will prompt you if it detects data on the device. Once your data is backed up elsewhere, click Erase USB Device.


You will get another prompt warning you that all the data will be wiped. Click Yes to continue.


The format will be very quick, while the copying of the files will take a little bit more time (about 10 to 15 minutes).


Once the process is complete, you should get the above confirmation message. At this point you can close the tool and use the USB drive to install Windows 7. Remember that you'll have to choose to boot off the USB drive. Before doing so, you may want to open up the USB drive and double click on setup.exe to see if everything looks okay. If you want to be able to do this manually, see the next section, and if you want to be able to install any edition of Windows 7, skip to the section after that.

Manual Creation

Maybe you don't like that Microsoft violated the GPL with the first version of the above tool (the company has since GPLed the code), or you're old-school and just love using the command prompt. Regardless of what your reasons are for creating a bootable Windows 7 USB drive manually, we have the scoop on how to do it. First, open the command prompt (if you use UAC make sure to right click it and choose "Run as administrator"), type "diskpart" without the quotes, and hit enter. You can also get here by simply typing "diskpart" without the quotes into the Start Menu and hitting enter.


Now type "list disk" without the quotes and hit enter. Take a look at the Size column and figure out which disk number your USB drive is. Ours is number 1, so we're going to type "select disk 1" without the quotes and hit enter. Now we're going to wipe it by typing "clean" without the quotes and hitting enter (make sure to do a backup of the contents if you haven't already).


At this point we want to prepare the USB drive for the files and make sure it is bootable. Type "create partition primary" without the quotes and hit enter. Then type "select partition 1" without the quotes and hit enter. Next type "active" without the quotes and hit enter. Finally, type "format fs=fat32" without quotes and hit enter (if you choose to use ntfs, you'll later have to run the "Bootsect.exe /nt60 G:" command to put boot manager compatible files onto your USB flash drive to make it a bootable device). This one will take a while, so go grab a snack, we'll wait. When that's done, type "assign" without the quotes and hit enter (this will assign a new drive letter to the USB flash drive).


An AutoPlay window like the one above will appear. Remember the drive letter (in our case it is H:), close the window, type "exit" without the quotes and hit enter. If you are working with an .ISO image, the best way to do this last part is to mount the file with a program like Virtual Clone Drive. Alternatively, you can extract the files from the .ISO image and simply copy them to the USB drive, but since we've been using the command prompt up to this point, we'll show you how to do the last step with it as well.


If you don't have the command prompt open, open it with administrative privileges, type "xcopy f:*.* /s/e/f hg:" without the quotes and hit enter. Note that you will likely have to replace "f:" with the drive letter for your Windows 7 DVD and "g:" with the drive letter for your USB flash drive. Don't worry if install.wim takes a while to copy: it's easily the biggest file on the disc.

Bonus: install any edition of Windows 7

This is a completely optional step and you only want to do this if you want to be able to choose which edition of Windows 7 to install. In the command prompt, type "del G:\sources\ei.cfg" without the quotes and hit enter (where g: is your USB flash drive).


This will make sure that your Windows 7 installer no longer has a specific version of Windows 7 set as the default, and you will be prompted to choose the version you want to install. Remember that while this gives you a more universal Windows 7 installer, you still need to make sure you are choosing the edition that you own, or you will not be able to activate Windows 7 with the key you have obtained.

for more information see at :

http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/12/the-usb-flash-drive/

Turn your laptop into JARVIS like ironman computer

Turn Your Laptop Into J.A.R.V.I.S From Iron Man.
Turn your laptop into super smart Jarvis in 15 Minutes :

You have probably heard about the Iron Man Personal Assistant,AKA J.A.R.V.I.S, you would have wondered if you could convert you laptop/desktop into a full featured robotic assistant,you could do it.And it is pretty easy. Although you might not be able to launch missiles and deploy security armor, you can do easy tasks like asking for weather, shutting PC down, pimp its interface etc etc...

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So Lets Get It Started,What Do You Need:

# Windows 7 or 8 ( 7 is just great, 8 will work, vista will not )
# Windows Speech Recognition Macros. https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2362886/WSRMacros.msi
# A Bluetooth/Wireless Headset With Mic (optional)
# JARVIS Theme. (read below)

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So That You Don't Get Confused :

We have divided the "convert-to-jarvis" mission into 3 Divisions :
- Training The Windows Speech Recognition Program.
- Setting Up The Windows Speech Macros.
- Setting Up The J.A.R.V.I.S Interface.

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Step One : Train Your Windows Speech Recognition Program : 5 Minutes :

Yeah I Know, A Basic Step, But The Most Important part of "convert-to-jarvis" mission, what you gotta do is fire up the windows speech recognition program, which comes pre-installed with the Windows, way to access it is via start bar. Now choose the required Fields,and after it is done, visit the "Train your computer to better understand you" section, it is not necessary for people with clear voice/accent, but I strongly advise you to spend at least 5 Minutes on this so your computer can understand you better.

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Step Two : Setting Up The Windows Speech Recognition Macros : 5 Minutes :

Now if you Have set-up-ed the Windows Speech Recog Program, you would have been trying out all sorts of cool commands, But now to spice it up, We'll use the Windows Speech Macros.I assume you would have already downloaded it from the link above and installed it.After Installing it i would advise you to put its shortcuts in two places, One in the desktop and other in the start-up folder, so it would start the second your computer boots up.So a little walk through to this software, This is a super-cool, little software that teaches your computer to talk to you interactively.Here is how to set up the commands :
Double Click The Macros Icon, and when the window pops up asking "What should the macro do?" click "Advanced." For those of you familiar with creating websites, this should be a welcome site. WSRM uses XML for commands... which makes creating custom commands relatively simple. For those of you who aren't aware of XML, it's still easy.Here Is A Little Sypnosis at what are you looking at :

<speechMacros> - This is the starting Tag, it just tells the computer that this XML file uses the Speech Macros to execute.

<command> - This is the command to be executed. Each command is basically one action... in most cases you will only need one, but for some automations you'll want to include more than one. You'll see an example of this later.

<listenFor></listenFor> - This tells the computer what word or phrase to listen for in order to do an action. Notice that there is a closing tag (</listenFor>), this tells the XML that this spot in the code is where to stop doing whatever function... in this case stop listening for a word or phrase once the computer hears it.

</command> - The closing tag for the "Command" tag... again, in XML every tag will have an opening/closing tag and what happens between the two is how it knows what to execute. In this case it knows that the command is finished once the word/phrase has been detected.

</speechMacros> - By now I think you can figure out why this is here.

Since I'm going to name my computer Jarvis, I'm going to tell my computer to listen for it's name by changing the <listenFor> tags to say the following : <listenFor>Jarvis</listenFor>

Here Is A Little Applet That will teach my laptop to Reply Me :
_________________________________________________________________________________
<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>Wake Up Jarvis</listenFor>
<speak>Systems Online, Database Check, Good Morning Sir !</speak>
</command>
</speechMacros>
_________________________________________________________________________________

So Whenever I Say "Hey Jarvis" My Computer will reply me with "System Online,Database Check, Good Morning Sir ! ", You can change it to whatever you like !

An Speech Macro For Getting The Weather :
_________________________________________________________________________________

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>Pull up the weather in [CityName]</listenFor>
<run command="http://www.weather.com/weather/local/%7B[CityName.zipCode]%7D"/>
</command>
<command>
<listenFor>Is it cold in [CityName]?</listenFor>
<speak>Let me check... just a moment.</speak>
<script language="JScript">
<![CDATA[
<var xml_doc = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM");
<xml_doc.async = false;
<xml_doc.load("http://www.rssweather.com/zipcode/%7B[zipCode]%7D/rss.php");
<var titles = xml_doc.getElementsByTagName("title");
<var descriptions = xml_doc.getElementsByTagName("description");
<Application.Speak(titles.item(2).text + " in {[*CityName]}");
<Application.Speak(descriptions.item(2).text);]]>
</script>
</command>
<listenForList name="CityName" propname="zipCode">
<item propval="65201">Columbia</item>
<item propval="37201">Nashville</item>
</listenForList>
</speechMacros>

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A Macro To Restart The Computer :

You will just have to say "Nuke It!" and the computer will restart :
_________________________________________________________________________________

<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>Nuke it</listenFor>
<speak>Rebooting The System.</speak>
<run command="C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe" params="-r -t 00"/>
</command>
</speechMacros>
_________________________________________________________________________________

Another One To Shut Down The Computer :

You will have to say "Goodbye Jarvis" And the Pc Will Shut Down
_________________________________________________________________________________

<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>GoodBye Jarvis !</listenFor>
<speak>Getting Offline,Bye Sir</speak>
<run command="C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe" params="-s -t 00"/>
</command>
</speechMacros>
___________________________________________________________________________

Download This Pretty Little App And Extract It To C:\NIR\ and you will add more intelligence to your PC :

Volume Up:

<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>volume up</listenFor>
<run command="C:\nir\nircmd.exe" params="changesysvolume +5000"/>
<speak>Volume Up</speak>
</command>
</speechMacros>
_________________________________________________________________________________

Volume Down:

<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>volume down</listenFor>
<run command="C:\nir\nircmd.exe" params="changesysvolume -5000"/>
<speak>Volume Down</speak>
</command>
</speechMacros>
_________________________________________________________________________________

Volume Medium :

<speechMacros>
<command>
<listenFor>volume medium</listenFor>
<run command="C:\nir\nircmd.exe" params="setsysvolume 30000"/>
<speak>Volume at medium listening level</speak>
</command>
</speechMacros>
_________________________________________________________________________________

For More Interactivity, install Voice Search on Google chrome or some similar app in firefox !

Step Three : Pimping The Interface : 5 Minutes :

So well we have completed the talking and replying part, but we don't need the old crappy windows desktop, we need a kick ass interactive desktop so our computer looks like jarvis, to do that we will install this theme from Devianart.

http://hell999.deviantart.com/art/IronMan-Jarvis-Theme-Download-259211144

After that we will need to pimp up the start of windows, to do that we will download this little utility called Bootchanger

http://hell999.deviantart.com/art/IronMan-Jarvis-Theme-Download-259211144

and getting a boot screen animation of your choice form here

http://windows7bootscreens.com/

then you are done.

Welcome To Jarvis !

So Whats Next ? We think using RFID's tags and attaching CCTV's cameras to it. We could also connect arduino and sub computers to control lightning and other electronics component, We could also add a IR Receiver to add remote functionality ! 

What do you think we could do next ?

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