Microsoft Releases Win 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

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Make your DVD fit into your USB key.

It's been a bit of a wait for those with netbooks trying to get Windows 7 installed on their little machines, but Microsoft has finally released its USB/DVD download tool – open source, of course.

As the name suggests, the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool creates a bootable USB stick from a Windows 7 install DVD for use with systems that do not contain an optical drive.

"As we previously explained, the testing and localization took longer than we expected, but the project is now hosted on CodePlex.com, Microsoft's Open Source software project hosting repository, and the code can be found here," explained Peter Galli, Open Source Community Manager for Microsoft.

The tool can also now be downloaded from the Microsoft Store here.

Let us know how the new tool works out in your Windows 7 installation adventures!

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Socnom
    I wonder why MS did not just bundle the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate with a boot stick. Its not like they would be giving out 2 licenses.
    Reply
  • itadakimasu
    Sounds awesome!!!!

    I'm giong to try it soon. sometimes i just dont have an extra optical drive laying around for new systems or ones i'm troubleshooting.
    Reply
  • ssalim
    Newbie here, but it says "To create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, download the ISO file and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool"... where do I download the ISO file?
    Reply
  • About time they re-released the USB tool :D

    Now if only they didn't just restrict it to Windows 7, this tool could be very useful for other OS Installations or other applications. :)
    Reply
  • scryer_360
    ? So this is just the official Microsoft tool right? I've seen bootable Win7 USB flash drives before using other bootloaders...
    Reply
  • jgiron
    I wonder why MS did not just bundle the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate with a boot stick. Its not like they would be giving out 2 licenses.
    I don't think that it has anything to do with license as much as it does with hardware compatibility.
    Reply
  • Actually they released it earlier, but they got caught breaking the GPL license d'oh!
    So now they open sourced it, like they should have to begin with.

    I just use an external DVD/RW to install the os on my netbook. Or you could use the Linux "dd" comand to get similar results with Flash media. Haven't tried it with windows yet though. It works great for LiveCD iso files.
    Reply
  • sunflier
    Nice.

    Did this months ago with UltraISO.
    Reply
  • ostermark
    it would be nice if they made one for windows xp as well
    Reply
  • thedipper
    You only need winrar to do this in the first place. Wipe your flash drive, extract the ISO with Winrar, and stick the resulting files right on that flash drive. It boots.
    Reply