You don’t have to waste a DVD to install Windows 7.You can install it directly from the hard disk by extracting the contents of the downloaded iso file.
One of the simplest method of installing Windows 7 is by mounting the downloaded iso using Daemon Tools and then running the setup from the mounted virtual drive.But problem here is that the setup skips the Pre Installation Environment .So you cannot install Windows 7 to a virtual hard disk.
I found a way of installing Windows 7 directly from the hard disk by extracting the contents of the downloaded iso file.This method loads the Pre-Installation Environment,so you can access the command prompt ( By pressing Shift+F10 ) before installation and make any customizations.
Windows XP
Here we are going to replace Windows XP bootloader with Windows 7 bootloader.The new Windows 7 bootloader loads the Windows 7 setup files.After installation ,the option to boot into XP will be automatically added to the boot menu.
1.Open the downloaded iso file in PeaZip.
2.Extract the following folders and files to the C drive(your System Drive i.e the primary partition)
boot
sources
bootmgr
boot
sources
bootmgr
3.Go to command prompt
cd c:boot
bootsect /nt60 SYS
cd c:boot
bootsect /nt60 SYS
3.Restart your computer.Windows 7 installation will start.Just follow the steps on the screen and install Windows 7.Make sure you install Windows 7 to different partition(Do not try to install in C:)
Windows XP and Windows Vista configured in dual Boot
Here we are going to replace Windows Vista bootloader with Windows 7 bootloader.The new Windows 7 bootloader loads the Windows 7 setup files.After installation ,the option to boot into XP will be automatically added to the boot menu.But the option to boot Windows Vista will be missing.So we have to manually add an entry to boot to Windows Vista
1.Boot into Windows XP
2.Backup and Delete the Boot folder and the bootmgr file from the C: drive (System Drive)
3.Open the downloaded iso file in PeaZip
4.Extract the following folders and files to the C drive(your System Drive i.e the primary partition)
boot
sources
bootmgr
boot
sources
bootmgr
5.Restart your computer.Windows 7 installation will start.Just follow the steps on the screen and install Windows 7.Make sure you install Windows 7 to different partition(Do not try to install in C:)
Follow the steps outlined in Adding Windows Vista to Windows 7 boot menu at the end of this article.
Windows Vista
Here we are going to replace Windows Vista bootloader with Windows 7 bootloader.The new Windows 7 bootloader loads the Windows 7 setup files.After installation the option to boot Windows Vista will be missing from the boot menu.So we have to manually add an entry to boot to Windows Vista
1.Open the downloaded iso file in PeaZip
2.Extract the following folders and files to a temporary folder c:temp
boot
bootmgr
boot
bootmgr
3.Extract the sources folder to the C drive(your System Drive i.e the primary partition)
Replace Windows Vista bootloader with Windows 7 bootloader by overwriting BootMgr and Boot folder located in ‘C:’
4.Boot into Windows Recovery Environment or WinPE. using Windows Vista Bootable DVD
After selecting the operating system open the Elevated Command Prompt and type the following commands.
5.C:>attrib bootmgr –s –h –r (Note: C: is the Windows Vista OS Partition)
Attribute command with –s –h –r changes the System, Hidden and Read Only attributes of a given file.
6.C:>cd temp (Note: temp is the temporary folder containing the Windows 7 bootloader files)
7.C:temp>xcopy /y /h bootmgr c:bootmgr
8.C:temp>xcopy /y /h boot c:
9.Restart your computer and Windows 7 installation will begin.
After installing Windows 7,the option to boot Windows Vista will be missing from the boot menu.
Adding Windows Vista to Windows 7 boot menu
1.Boot into windows 7.
The drive letters in Windows 7 will be different(.So check the drive letter of your Windows Vista install.
2.Press Winkey+R to open Run Dialog.
3.Type cmd and press enter to open command prompt with elevated priveleges.
4.Type the following commands.
bcdedit
C:>bcdeditWindows Boot Manager
——————–
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {59cad9f2-de83-12cd-9d9e-c59ac6c2613b}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30Windows Boot Loader
——————-
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path Windowssystem32winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {59cad9f4-de83-12cd-9d9e-c59ac6c2613b}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot Windows
resumeobject {59cad9f2-de83-12cd-9d9e-c59ac6c2613b}
nx OptIn
5.Type the following to create a Boot Loader based upon the default boot loader.
bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Vista”
C:>bcdedit /copy {current} /d “Vista”
The entry was successfully copied to {59cad9f6-de83-12cd-9d9e-c59ac6c2613b}.
6.Type the following to change the device to D: (the drive letter of the Vista Partition as seen from Windows 7). Note the identifier is the one generated by step 5. This id is different for every boot loader. You have to replace it with the actual output when you create the boot loader.
bcdedit /set {59cad9f6-de83-12cd-9d9e-c59ac6c2613b} device partition=D:
7.Reboot the machine and you’ll see the option to boot to Vista.
