Install Windows from a USB Flash Drive

Here’s how to create a bootable Windows installation USB drive starting with a Windows .iso file or a Windows Setup DVD.

If you’re looking for an easy way to create a bootable USB Windows installation drive, use the media creation tool.

What you need

• Windows 10 install .iso or DVD
• USB flash drive with at least 5GB free space. This drive will be formatted, so make sure it doesn’t have any important files on it.
• Technician PC — Windows PC that you’ll use to format the USB flash drive
• Destination PC — A PC that you’ll install Windows on

Step 1 — Format the drive and set the primary partition as active

Connect the USB flash drive to your technician PC.

Open Disk Management: Right-click on Start and choose Disk Management.

Format the partition: Right-click the USB drive partition and choose Format. Select the FAT32 file system to be able to boot either BIOS-based or UEFI-based PCs.

Set the partition as active: Right-click the USB drive partition and click Mark Partition as Active.

If Mark Partition as Active isn’t available, you can instead use diskpart to select the partition and mark it active.

Step 2 — Copy Windows Setup to the USB flash drive

Use File Explorer to copy and paste the entire contents of the Windows product DVD or ISO to the USB flash drive.

Optional: add an unattend file to automate the installation process. For more information, see Automate Windows Setup.

Step 3 — Install Windows to the new PC

Connect the USB flash drive to a new PC.

Turn on the PC and press the key that opens the boot-device selection menu for the computer, such as the Esc/F10/F12 keys. Select the option that boots the PC from the USB flash drive.

Windows Setup starts. Follow the instructions to install Windows.

Remove the USB flash drive.

If your Windows image is larger than 4GB

Windows USB install drives are formatted as FAT32, which has a 4GB filesize limit. If your image is larger than the filesize limit:

Copy everything except the Windows image file (sources\install.wim) to the USB drive (either drag and drop, or use this command, where D: is the mounted ISO and E: is the USB flash drive.)

Split the Windows image file into smaller files, and put the smaller files onto the USB drive:

How to Install Windows 7 From USB

A tutorial on using a USB flash drive to install Windows 7

Chances are you’ll need to install Windows 7 from a USB device if you have a tablet, a small laptop, or a netbook device, few of which include optical drives as standard hardware.

As of January 2020, Microsoft no longer supports Windows 7. We recommend upgrading to Windows 10 to continue receiving security updates and technical support.

Prepare for the Installation

You must migrate the Windows 7 setup files onto a flash drive (or any USB-based storage) and then boot from that flash drive to get the Windows 7 installation process started. However, simply copying the files from your Windows 7 DVD to a flash drive won’t work. You have to specially prepare the USB device and then properly copy the Windows 7 install files to it before it’ll work as you expect.

You’re in a similar, but slightly easier to solve, situation if you’ve purchased a Windows 7 ISO file directly from Microsoft and need that on a flash drive.

No matter what situation you’re in, just follow the instructions below to install Windows 7 from a USB device.

The following tutorial applies equally to whatever edition of Windows 7 you have a disc or ISO image of: Windows 7 Ultimate, Professional, Home Premium, etc.

What You’ll Need

• A Windows 7 ISO or DVD
• Access to a computer with Windows 7, 8, 10, Vista, or XP installed and working properly, as well as with a DVD drive if you have a Windows 7 DVD
• A 4 GB (or larger) flash drive

How to Install Windows 7 From USB

Correctly preparing a USB drive for use as an installation source for Windows 7 will take around 15 to 30 minutes depending on your computer speed and what edition of Windows 7 you have on DVD or in ISO format

Start with Step 1 below if you have a Windows 7 DVD or Step 2 if you have a Windows 7 ISO image.

Create an ISO file from the Windows 7 DVD. If you already know how to create ISO images, fantastic: do it, and then come back here for further instructions on what to do with it.

If you’ve never created an ISO file from a disc before, check out the tutorial linked above. It’ll walk you through installing some free software and then show how to use it to make the ISO. An ISO image is a single file that perfectly represents a disc—in this case, your Windows 7 installation DVD.

Next, we’re going to work on properly getting that Windows 7 ISO you just created onto the flash drive.

Download Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. Once downloaded, execute the file and follow the installation wizard.

This free program from Microsoft, which works in Windows 10 through Windows XP, will correctly format the USB drive and then copy the contents of your Windows 7 ISO file to the drive.

Pick the en-US.exe download for the English edition of this tool.

Start the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool program, which is probably located in your Start menu or on your Start screen, as well as on your Desktop.

On the Step 1 of 4: Choose ISO file screen, click Browse.

Locate and select your Windows 7 ISO file, and then click Open.

If you downloaded Windows 7 directly from Microsoft, check for the ISO image wherever you tend to store downloaded files. If you manually created an ISO file from your Windows 7 DVD in Step 1 above then it will be wherever you saved it to.

Click Next once you’re back on the Step 1 of 4 screen.

Click USB device on the Step 2 of 4: Choose media type screen.

On the Step 3 of 4: Insert USB device screen, choose the flash drive or external hard drive you want to put the Windows 7 installation files on.

If you haven’t yet plugged in the flash drive or other device you’re using, you can do that now. Just click the refresh button to make it show up in the list.

Click the Begin copying button.

Click Erase USB Device if you’re prompted to do so on a Not Enough Free Space window. Then click Yes to the confirmation in the next window.

If you don’t see this it just means that the flash drive or external hard disk you’ve selected is already empty.

Any data you have on this USB drive will be erased as part of this process.

On Step 4 of 4: Creating bootable USB device, wait for the program to format the USB drive and then copy the Windows 7 installation files to it from the ISO image you provided.

You’ll see a Status of Formatting for several seconds, followed by Copying files. This part might take as long as 30 minutes, maybe even longer, depending on which edition of Windows 7 the ISO file you have is from, as well as on how fast your computer, USB drive, and USB connection is.

The percentage complete indicator may sit on one or more percentages for a long time. This apparent pause doesn’t mean anything is wrong.

The next screen you see should say Bootable USB device created successfully, with a Status of Backup completed.

You can now close the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool program. The USB drive can now be used to install Windows 7.

Boot from the USB device to start the Windows 7 setup process.

You might need to make changes to the boot order in BIOS if the Windows 7 setup process doesn’t start when you try to boot from the USB drive. See How to Change the Boot Order in BIOS if you’ve never done that.

If you still can’t get the flash drive to boot, and you also have a UEFI based computer, see the information at the bottom of this page.

If you arrived here from How to Clean Install Windows 7, you can now return to that tutorial and continue installing Windows 7.

You should have now installed Windows 7 by USB.

Tips & More Information

When the Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool formats the flash drive during the process above, it does so using NTFS, a file system that some UEFI systems won’t boot from if present on a USB stick.

To get the USB drive to boot on these computers, you should copy the data from the flash drive onto a folder on your computer, then reformat the flash drive using the older FAT32 file system, and then copy that same data back onto the drive.

See How to Burn an ISO File to USB for an alternative method for getting a Windows 7 ISO image onto a USB drive.

Installing Windows 8/8.1 From USB Tutorial

How to use a flash drive to install Windows 8 or 8.1

Here it is in a nutshell: if you don’t have an optical drive in your computer (those things that take those shiny BD, DVD, or CD discs), and you want to install Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 on that computer, you’ll need to get the Windows 8 installation files onto some kind of media that you can boot from.

Fortunately, the ubiquitous and inexpensive flash drive, or any other USB based drive, is a perfect solution. While many computers don’t have optical drives, they all have USB ports. thank goodness.

Once you have those installation files onto a flash drive, which is exactly what we’ll show you how to do over the course of this tutorial, you can move on to the actual Windows 8 installation process, which we also have a complete tutorial of — but we’ll get to that at the end.

If you have an ISO image of Windows 8 and actually do have a DVD drive in the computer, you don’t need this tutorial at all. Just burn the ISO to a disc and then install Windows 8.

We created this step by step walkthrough in addition to our original How to Install Windows 8 From a USB Device guide. If you’re familiar with booting from removable media, working with ISO images, and installing Windows, then those instructions will probably be enough for you. Otherwise, we recommend continuing through this tutorial, which is considerably more detailed.

Gather the Necessary Supplies

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SanDisk, Microsoft, and ASUS

Before you get started, you’ll need to have the following three things:

A Flash Drive

This flash drive, or any USB storage device you’d like to use, should be at 4 GB in size if you’re planning on installing a 32-bit version of Windows 8 or 8.1, or at least 8 GB in size if you’re planning on a 64-bit version. A 5 GB drive would do, but the next easily available size after 4 GB is 8 GB.

This USB drive also needs to be empty, or you need to be fine with erasing everything off of it as part of this process.

If you don’t have a spare flash drive around, you can pick up a 4 GB or 8 GB one for under $15 USD at most retailers. If you’re not in a hurry, you can usually get an even better price at online retailers like Amazon.

Windows 8 or 8.1 (on DVD or ISO)

Windows 8 (or Windows 8.1, of course) is available for purchase as either a physical DVD disc, or as an ISO file. Either is fine but there’s extra step to take if you have a real DVD. We’ll get to all of that in a little bit.

If you bought Windows 8 from a retailer other than Microsoft, you probably have a DVD. If you bought it from Microsoft directly, you had the option of having a Windows 8 installation DVD shipped to you, downloading a Windows 8 ISO image, or both.

So, if you have a Windows 8 DVD, find it. If you downloaded an ISO image of Windows 8, locate it on your computer. Be sure you find the product key that accompanied that purchase as well — you’ll need it later on.

If you don’t have a Windows 8 installation DVD or ISO image, then yes, you’ll need to buy a copy of Windows 8 to continue. Amazon is a good place to try.

Access to a Computer

The last thing you’ll need is access to a working computer. This can be the computer you’re about to install Windows 8 onto, assuming it’s working, or it can be some other computer. This computer can be running Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP.

If what you’re working with now is a Windows 8 DVD (verses a Windows 8 ISO image), make sure this computer you’ll be borrowing has a DVD drive, too.

Get Started!

Now that you have a flash drive, your Windows 8 media, and access to a working computer, you can work on getting those installation files from that disc or downloaded onto your flash drive so you install Windows 8.

There’s an extra step to take if your copy of Windows 8/8.1 is on a DVD, so:

• Continue to Step 3 if you have a Windows 8 DVD disc and need that on a flash drive.
• Continue to Step 4 if you have a Windows 8 ISO file you downloaded and need that on a flash drive.