Mastering Windows 7

Handy utility for power users!

Windows 7 ISOs (and DVDs) are single-version. This means that with a Home Premium ISO, you can only install the Home Premium version of Windows 7. Same with Ultimate, Starter and all the others.

Annoying!

Note: With Vista you could pick and choose the edition you wanted during install time (but you could only activate it if you had the appropriate product key).

Enter the Windows 7 Edition Switcher. Basically, this automatically patches the appropriate file inside the ISO file. No having to unpack the ISO, no mess, no fuss!

Nice!

Question from the email mailbag:

“Can I legally download Windows 7? As in buy it but not get a disc?”

Yes, but it’ll cost you!

Take a trip over to the Microsoft Store where you’ll find both the full and upgrade versions available for purchase.

• Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade ($119.99)
• Windows 7 Home Premium Full version ($199.99)
• Windows 7 Professional Upgrade ($199.99)
• Windows 7 Professional Full version ($299.99)
• Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade ($219.99)
• Windows 7 Ultimate Full version ($319.99)

This method is handy if you want to install Windows 7 on a PC that doesn’t have a DVD drive (such as a netbook) but it’s still a good idea to burn it onto a disc as backup … just in case!

Here are a few screenshots to show you what you can expect from the Windows 7 install process, and what you end up with.

Read the rest of this entry »

When you download your Windows 7 Release Candidate file from Microsoft you’ll end up with a .ISO file. Some of you might not be familiar with .ISO files so here’s a quick rundown as to how to get that file onto a DVD disc.

• Download the Windows 7 RC .ISO file!
  Duh!
• Download and install ImgBurn
  Rather that try figure out if you have a tool capable of burning .ISO files onto disc it’s just easier to download ImgBurn and use that. That way we’re all on the same page!
• Burn the .ISO file to DVD
  OK, pop a blank DVD into your DVD writer drive (for now I’m assuming that you actually have a DVD writer, if you don’t I’ll show you something else you can do in a moment). With that done, fire up ImgBurn. Select Write image file to disc.
  
  Point the Source to the .ISO file you downloaded and then click on the big button at the bottom-left of the window to kick off the disc writing process.
  
  And then after a short wait, you’re done!
  
  Now you’ve successfully burned the .ISO file to the DVD.
• Use your DVD!
  Duh! 
  You can now use the DVD like any other OS install disc … pop it in the DVD drive of the system you want to install Windows 7 onto and boot up the PC and you should get that Press any key to boot from CD or DVD message. Press any key to kick off the proceedings!
  If you don’t get that Press any key to boot from CD or DVD message when trying to boot from the DVD then you’ll need to dig out your motherboard manual and tweak boot device settings in the BIOS.

Want to grab the Windows 7 RC download but want to make sure that you PC can handle it? Here’s what you need to be able to run Windows 7:

• 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver