[rickatnight11]

I apologize to post yet another guide, but I have written up a guide based closely on my previous Vista installation guide. Please give it a look. I hope this helps out.

Install Windows 7 on Dell Mini 9 (USB)

Previous: Install Vista on Dell Mini 9 (USB)

[MoInSTL]

Not everyone has diskpart if they don't have Vista. Personally, I think the Install Widows 7 Via USB in 4 Easy Steps is in fact easier and faster. install-win-7-via-usb-in-4-easy-steps-t4292.html-st=0&sk=t&sd=a

Second, the easier way of dealing with the WAIK requirement is to simply download & install an older version of vLite and then install the new version on top of it.

Also, loading the iso to a virtual drive is going to be far faster than copying from the DVD.

[rickatnight11]

Thanks for the feedback, MoInSTL. It's true that this would be difficult to do on a non-Windows system, but I believe even Windows XP has "diskpart". I could be wrong. At the least, however, the vLite step is important, especially for those users with smaller SSDs.

I would recommend against using earlier versions of vLite as it could strip something incorrectly and hose your installation.

This guide was adapted from my Vista guide, so I kept in the bits about the different sources. You are right that the most likely scenario is that the user will have the ISO. My guide still accounts for that. I used a virtual drive as my source when writing the guide and testing the process.

[MoInSTL]

Originally Posted by rickatnight11

Thanks for the feedback, MoInSTL. It's true that this would be difficult to do on a non-Windows system, but I believe even Windows XP has "diskpart". I could be wrong. At the least, however, the vLite step is important, especially for those users with smaller SSDs.install

I would recommend against using earlier versions of vLite as it could strip something incorrectly and hose your installation.

This guide was adapted from my Vista guide, so I kept in the bits about the different sources. You are right that the most likely scenario is that the user will have the ISO. My guide still accounts for that. I used a virtual drive as my source when writing the guide and testing the process.

Windows 7 is downloaded only as an iso, not most likely as you said. I only mentioned diskpart as XP does not have it. Mini 9's ship with Ubuntu or XP. Even if I had a Mini 12 with Vista, I would still follow the guide I posted the link to as it's so much simpler (and faster). No multiple command prompt typing either.

What I suggested about vLite was to download an older version as the older version does not require WAIK. THEN install the new vLite on top. This worked on the last three 7 builds perfectly. Doing it this way involves one extra download of the older vLite and no copying pasting other stuff to patch it.

[rickatnight11]

Not trying to start a battle I'm trying to make my guide as ambiguous as necessary, and since some people may be getting a Windows 7 disk burned by someone else I wanted to accommodate for them. It's not taking up much space in the guide to include that, is it?

Here is a screenshot of DISKPART from XP. I did not manually install this. It worked out of the box:


Good to know about the vLite, thanks!

[weber72]

I found during my Windows 7 installation that you can use the newest version of vLite. The program only needs one file from the WAIK to work properly, and it's a lot easier than downloading the entire kit. Just Google 'wimgapi.dll' and download it. If you then copy 'wimgapi.dll' into vLite's root folder, the program will run perfectly.

Never mind that I found this out the hard way, by downloading the whole WAIK (1GB!) only to find that vLite needs one 300K file from it... :roll: Thought I'd toss this in to help everyone out.

[rickatnight11]

Thanks, weber! I actually tried to download those files first (on Windows 7) to see if I could use vLite without the huge WAIK installation, but it wouldn't work for me. I was probably doing it wrong.

[arfster]

Has anyone tried Win7 RC on an 8GB ssd? Would be interesting to know how much space is available after a vlited version.


I tried this before on earlier betas, but it left almost nothing spare. Hopefully MS have trimmed things down a bit with the RC?

[MoInSTL]

Originally Posted by arfster

Has anyone tried Win7 RC on an 8GB ssd? Would be interesting to know how much space is available after a vlited version.


I tried this before on earlier betas, but it left almost nothing spare. Hopefully MS have trimmed things down a bit with the RC?

I was able to trim it down to a little over 3GB. More like 3.5. If you follow the tweaks like turning off hibernation & system restore you should be good to go. Turning off hibernation frees up a GB.

[Dreizehn]

Looks good to me, worked fine to install it on my Mini9! Now to use my stick on my PC...