During the Beta days I had created my own USB loader for Windows 7, and you can find all kinds of web pages out there devoted to help you create your very own USB based Windows 7 Installer…..but why do it yourself when Microsoft has taken the time to write a free utility to help you burn the ISO to DVD or create a Windows 7 USB  based installer. If you buy Windows 7 from the online Microsoft Store you have the option to download an ISO or if like me you have a TechNet Subscription or something similar like an Action Pack or MSDN account you can download the ISO file for your version of Windows 7. In my case I am using Windows 7 Ultimate.

The process took about 10 minutes to complete on my HP dv7t laptop. And the installation time on my Home Theater PC was about 30 minutes from first boot with the USB Drive to Desktop Icons. You can download this utility free of charge from the Microsoft Store @ http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool?err=t2. You will need a good USB drive and for the sake of performance I’d recommend a fast drive like my A-Data Drive which is rated to work with Ready Boost, and while I used an 8GB USB Drive for my Windows 7 Loader you can stick with a 4GB which is more than large enough for the slightly larger than 3GB worth of data the loaded will install on it. If you do decide to go with a larger drive like I did. Be you can use that extra storage for other applications you want readily available like Windows XP Mode installation which is around 500 MB, your Office 2007 DVD and any other goodies you can think to add.

And speaking of Windows XP Mode. If you are running Windows 7 Enterprise, Professional or Ultimate then you should download this today. Windows XP mode is a Virtual PC running on your Windows 7 PC that allows you to seamlessly integrate older applications that may only be compatible with Windows XP into your Windows 7 experience. Windows XP Mode is totally free so be sure to head on over to the Microsoft  Windows Virtual PC Download site located @ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx and download your copy. Once installed you will find it doesn’t take very long to self configure and you are ready to go. My installation took about 20 minutes to complete. 

Once you are up and running just install your applications in the Virtual PC like you normally would. You can attach USB devices as well as DVDs or CDs to the XP Mode system and Windows Virtual PC will automatically publish your applications seamlessly into the Windows 7 Start Menu.

By default XP Mode only uses 512MB of your system RAM but if your like me and you have a lot to spare you can increase that amount by shutting down the XP Mode system and changing the settings. In my case this HP laptop is equipped with 8GB of RAM so I dedicated 2GB to the XP Mode system, you can add as little or as much to your individual systems (up to about 3GB) if you have RAM to spare and if you don’t its still pretty cheap to upgrade so I’d recommend investing in some additional memory especially if you happen to be running the x64 Bit version of Windows 7. I spent around $115 for the 8GB RAM upgrade I did on my Windows Media Center several months ago.

What ever the application it shouldn’t be too hard to get it installed, or configured. Once you have your application installed its basically ready to go, just remember to close your XP Mode system to active the integration with the Windows 7 Start Menu. You cannot run a seamless application while the Windows XP system is running in full mode.The screenshot above shows Internet Explorer 6 and Microsoft Office Access 2002 running in XP Mode side by side with other Windows 7 applications. So if you have any old applications that you still have a requirement to still use like a custom developed database application written for Microsoft Office Access 97 or an application that no longer has vendor support but is still vital to your business XP Mode is a great option. You get all the benefits of Windows 7 and true application compatibility with XP Mode

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