HowTo : Mount Virtual Hard Discs (VHD)

Windows 7 allows you to create and manipulate virtual hard disk files (or “VHD”s) as if they were real disks. This is great as it allows Virtual PC users to mount their virtual disks within a live Windows installation without the need of booting the virtual PC environment.

To create virtual hard disks:
1. Click on Start, right click on Computer, and then click on Manage. Provide consent to the User Account Control dialog if required.
2. In the left hand pane, click on Disk Management, and wait for it to load.
3. In the menu bar, click on Action, and then click on Create VHD.

Here you will be able to specfify the size and the location of the virtual hard disk file.

To attach a virtual hard disk file:
1. Click on Start, right click on Computer, and then click on Manage. Provide consent to the User Account Control dialog if required.
2. In the left hand pane, click on Disk Management, and wait for it to load.
3. In the menu bar, click on Action, and then click on Attach VHD.

In the dialog that appears, you can specify the location of the VHD file as well as mark it as read-only.

Initializing virtual hard disks:
1. Click on Start, right click on Computer, and then click on Manage.Provide consent to the User Account Control dialog if required.
2. In the left hand pane, click on Disk Management, and wait for it to load.
3. In the menu bar, click on Action, and then click on Attach VHD.
4. Specify the location of the VHD file and click on OK, the Disk Management Service will go ahead and mount the VHD file.
5. Once it is mounted, right click on the virtual disk (which will show up as a blue hard drive) and click on Initialize Disk.
6. In the dialog that appears, select the partition style you wish to use and click on OK. The Disk Management Service will now initialize the disk for use.
7. Right-click on the unallocated space in the virtual hard disk and click on “New Simple Volume”, and follow through the instructions in the wizard to create a new partition within the VHD.

Now, if you go to Windows Explorer, you’ll see another hard drive here, which is the virtual hard disk – you can interact with it as if it were a real hard drive.
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HowTo : Install windows 7 from a USB Drive

Windows 7 can run on machines with lower specs than required for Windows Vista, and many users are actually finding it runs better than Windows XP on lower spec machines. It’s also ideal to run on newer netbook machines, but unfortunately many of these do not include a DVD drive so how do you install windows 7 on a machine without a DVD drive?

How To Install Windows 7 From A USB Drive

1. Find a standard 4GB USB Drive and plug it into your machine
2. Click Start in your enter ‘cmd’ in the run field. Once cmd is open type in ‘diskpart’ and a new window will open
3. In the new diskpart window type:
‘list disk’ : This lists all the disk drives attached to your machine
4. Look for your USB drive and note the number and then type: ’select disk #’, where ‘#’ is your USB disk number
5. then type ‘clean’
6. then type ‘create partition primary’
7. then ’select partition 1′
8. then ‘active’
9. then ‘format fs=fat32 quick’

Once you’ve finished these steps you then need to copy your Windows 7 files to the USB. To do this you have to mount your Windows 7 ISO as a virtual DVD. Doing this is easy:

1. Install MagicDisk (free) or any other emulation software like Daemon Tools
2. once installed, right-click on MagicDisk in your system tray click on ‘Virtual CD/DVD-Rom’, select your DVD drive
3. then ‘Mount’ and in the dialog window that opens up, select your Windows 7 ISO
4. Now in windows Explorer, click on your DVD drive and you should see all the Windows 7 Files. 5. All you have to do now is copy and paste all the files to your USB key and you have a Windows 7 USB Installation Stick!
6. Install the stick in the PC you want to install Windows 7 on and boot up. Remember to change your bios to allow booting from USB
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HowTo : download Windows 7

After February 10th 2009, Microsoft will no longer be providing downloads for any version of Windows 7 Beta.

Here’s some updated information on how to obtain Windows 7:

The latest leaked build right now is Windows 7 Build 7077 (updated April , which is even newer than Windows 7 Beta Build 7000.

If you want the original beta that was issued at PDC and previously issued officially through Microsoft servers, you are looking for Build 7000. 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Build 7000 can still be found.
How to Download:

The other only way you can obtain Windows 7 now is through torrents. If you are not sure what torrents are, it’s P2P technology that makes file-sharing easy. To start off, you need to download a torrent client. uTorrent is a good lightweight client and can be downloaded here. Once you install uTorrent, head to one of the largest torrent directories listed below.

The Pirate Bay
Demonoid
BtJunkie
Mininova

Generally, you want to download from torrents with the highest seeder to leecher ratio. That is, the more seeders and less leechers, the faster the download. Usually, torrents with over hundreds of seeders are safe and legit, but you may want to read the comments to see if the torrent you are downloading is legitimate and safe.

Just click on Download this Torrent and open the file. If .torrent is not yet associated with your torrent client (uTorrent in this case), find uTorrent in the Program Files folder and open it. Just click on OK and the download will proceed.
Activation Keys:

Here are a couple of activation keys for Windows 7. The keys are universal and work with any version of Windows 7 and expire on August 1, 2009. They can be used for an unlimited number of times.

D9RHV-JG8XC-C77H2-3YF6D-RYRJ9
482XP-6J9WR-4JXT3-VBPP6-FQF4M
RFFTV-J6K7W-MHBQJ-XYMMJ-Q8DCH
JYDV8-H8VXG-74RPT-6BJPB-X42V4
7XRCQ-RPY28-YY9P8-R6HD8-84GH3
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