Installing Windows7 On A Machine Without Windows On It

Okay. You'd think that Microsoft would make it easy for someone to convert to Windows, wouldn't you? Well, in fact, they don't. A friend was struggling to install Windows7 after paying for it online and downloading the installation files. I asked "What files do you have?", expecting an answer like "an ISO", or "an IMG". But no.. "An EXE, and two BOX files"!

And things just got crazier after that. If this is the problem you're facing, then you'll want to start here.

Before you do, know this: You absolutely, positively, need a Windows machine to get this working. Mind-blowing. Simply amazing.

You will need to download the Windows Installation Kit. But you can't do that on any other kind of OS. You need to download it on a machine that can run a program to prove it's a Genuine Windows installation. Nice.

Once you get that you'll have an IMG you can burn to DVD.

Once you install the software on the DVD you'll need to trawl through the installation directory for Oscdimg.exe.

Now you run your original EXE to extract data from the BOX files.

From a Windows CMD prompt you can then type the incantation for Oscdimg to produce an ISO image for a DVD.

You can then burn this ISO to a DVD, and you're good to go (it's possible that for this you may need to pay for some software that can burn ISOs to DVD).

Seriously, that's how easy it is?