Method

Install RMPrepUSB
1. Install the latest version of RMPrepUSB to a Windows computer. You'll need v2.1.638 or later as this has the latest grub4dos version and it includes WinContig.

Prepare the installation folder C:\Win7XP

2. Download the file XP7PWD.ZIP and extract it to a new folder on your Windows hard disk - for example C:\Win7XP (you will need to enter a password for the zip fle as it is password protected - see the 'Required Downloads' section for the password!) Download and rename the ISOs... 3. Download and copy the Windows XP SP3 OEM ISO file (you will have to search the internet for this if you do not have the CD or the ISO already - see Required Downloads section above for details). Make sure the the XP ISO file is placed in the folder C:\Win7XP\_iso\Windows and rename it to XPPROSP3.ISO if it is Professional. If you have an XP Home ISO, it should be named XPHOMESP3.ISO. You can have both XPPROSP3.ISO and XPHOMESP3.ISO if you wish. So you can have one or both of: _ISO\Windows\XPPROSP3.iso _ISO\Windows\XPHOMESP3.iso 4. Download one or more Windows 7 SP1 or SP0 (RTM) or Vista ISOs and copy each ISO file to the folder C:\WIN7XP\_iso\Windows. I would suggest you use the Professional versions (usually they all contain all versions except Enterprise anyway). 4.1 Rename each ISO file as in the list below. The following ISO's can be added and will automatically be listed in the menu: _ISO\Windows\Win7_32_SP1.iso _ISO\Windows\Win7_64_SP1.iso _ISO\Windows\Win7_32_SP0.iso _ISO\Windows\Win7_64_SP0.iso _ISO\Windows\Vista_32.iso _ISO\Windows\Vista_64.iso _ISO\Windows\SVR2K8R2_64.iso

(this can be any version but must be named like this) (this can be any version but must be named like this) (this can be any version but must be named like this)

If you want to install a 64-bit version of Win 7, it will still work fine, but you must name the iso file as Win7_64_SP1.iso (or Win7_64_SP0 if it is the first non-SP1 RTM version). Most Windows 7 ISO files will contain all versions of Windows 7 (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate) even if it says it is only for one of these! When you install using this method, you will be able to choose any of the Win7 versions. So just download any one or all of the Win 7 Professional ISO files and rename them accordingly. If you want a USB Flash drive that also has Vista then add all these ISO files and name them

correctly too. If you want to add more versions of Vista or Windows 7 Enterprise or even Server 2K8 R2, just add another menu entry to the menu.lst file using Windows NotePad as a text editor. Each menu entry begins with 'title'. You must change all references to the ISO file so that the name of the ISO file matches the name in the menu.

Prepare the USB Flash drive

Note: Win 7/Vista/SVR2K8 installation does not work if you use a USB hard disk - you must use a USB Flash memory (pen) drive that is seen by Windows as a Removable drive (shown by RMPrepUSB when the drive is selected). If you just want to install XP, you can use either a USB hard disk or a USB Flash drive. The USB drive must be large enough to take all the ISO files that you want to put on it. 5. Run RMPrepUSB and set the options as follows (see screenshot below): 1 Size = MAX 2 Volume label = RMPrepUSB (or whatever you like!) 3 WinPE v2 [BOOTMGR] 4 FAT32 (if you do not need to boot to FreeDOS then use NTFS as it is faster and supports files larger than 4GB) - also tick the Boot as HDD checkbox. 5 Tiick 'Copy OS files' and set the copy files path to that of your hard disk folder where you have copied the files (do NOT choose extract) e.g. C:\Win7XP 6 Click on 6 Prepare Drive

Install grub4dos
After the drive has been formatted and the files from the C:\Win7XP folder have been copied over by RMPrepUSB... 5.1 Click on the Install grub4dos button answer Yes to MBR question hit Enter next to copy over the grldr file when prompted (do not close down the command shell - you must hit the [Enter] key as prompted). Note: RMPrepUSB Beta includes the latest version of grub4dos - you MUST use the latest version of the grub4dos grldr file (December 2011 or later). Even if you don't format the drive with RMPrepUSB, please use the latest version of RMPrepUSB to install grub4dos. 6. You should now have a USB Flash drive with the following contents (check the iso files are present and correctly named!):

7,998 48,745 68,362 60 39 272,013 1,494 45,260 16,897 231,424 105,592 43,319 721,160 39 850 142 <DIR> <DIR> <DIR> <DIR> <DIR> <DIR>

AutoUnattend.xml back.xpm.gz COMFREE.COM FDAUTO.bat FDCONFIG.SYS grldr How to Activate XP.txt KERNEL.SYS Menu.lst message PCIID.ima.gz plpbt.bin winvblock.ima.gz xpsp3_Key.txt ActivateXP.cmd XPACTIVE.REG AntiWPA FiraDisk FREEDOS Windows Loader WinVBlock _iso _iso/Windows/Win7_32_SP1.iso _iso/Windows/XPPROSP3.iso

7. Now check that the USB Flash drive will boot and show a menu, test it in RMPrepUSB by pressing the F11 key to run QEMU - answer 0 to the virtual disk question (or 2000 if you want to actually try to install XP to a virtual hard drive). This does not change your current OS but does make a 2GB file on your hard drive which you can later boot from using menu option 1. Hit Enter for the virtual RAM size - do not use a size over about 1.3GB. You should see a menu with XP install and Windows 7 install items listed (3-7). If some entries are missing then check that you have copied the iso files to the /_iso/Windows folder and named them correctly. If you just see a grub> prompt then you did not follow the instructions in step 5.1 correctly you must hit the [Enter] key after grub4dos has been installed so that the grldr file is copied over. Once all menu items are listed, you should now have a bootable USB Flash drive! If you see a 'bootmgr is missing' error message then you have forgotten to install grub4dos in step 5.1! Try the menu items to see if they work (this won't affect the system files on your hard disk at all - it is quite safe). To quit QEMU, hit ALT+CTRL and then click on the X in the top right corner of the form.

Items 3-7 should be the Win 7 and XP options if the iso files are present. Tip: To change the menu title or menu text, edit menu.lst using NotePad (or press F4 in RMPrepUSB). 8. (Optional) Download any XP and Win7 network (LAN or WiFi) drivers for the target system and store them on the USB Flash drive. These will be required in order to get updates as an internet connection will be required. You can also add any other drivers (such as chipset, graphics, audio, etc.) for your target system at this stage as you will need them later on once Windows is installed. 9. To avoid 'File is not contiguous' errors - run RMPrepUSB and type CTRL+F2 to run WinContig and defrag all files on the selected drive. 10. IMPORTANT: Check the MD5 hash checksum of the ISO files in the /_iso/Windows folder on the USB drive to ensure they have been copied correctly. You can do this by pressing ALT+F2 in RMPrepUSB. This is worth the few minutes it takes and may save you lots of frustration later. It is not uncommon to find errors when copying large files to a USB Flash drive! If you get the wrong MD5 checksum, check the MD5 of the copy on the hard disk and/or repeat USB drive preparation again. Note: If you delete an iso file from the USB drive and copy over another iso file, then run step 9 again to ensure the files are still contiguous.