Once you download the tool and extract it, the Welcome to the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Setup Wizard windows will appear. The steps for the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool setup are detailed below. Microsoft Image Mastering API v2 must be installed.For Windows XP Users the following applications must be installed prior to installing the tool: You need to be an administrator on the computer you are installing the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool on.DVD-R drive or 4GB removable USB flash drive.
Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended).Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista, or Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit).The System Requirements for the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool are: You might need to change the boot order of drives in your computer’s BIOS to boot directly from your USB flash drive or from a DVD when you first turn your computer on.
This will make it so you can install Windows 7 onto your computer directly from the USB flash drive or external USB DVD drive (as most netbooks do not have internal DVD drives). If you choose to download an ISO file you can create a bootable file so that you can perform the install from a DVD or USB flash drive by downloading and running the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. The ISO file combines all the Windows 7 installation files into a single uncompressed file. You can also download the file as an ISO file and use a USB flash drive for the install. This will allow you to perform the installation from within the existing Windows XP operating system. As stated from the Microsoft website – “The Microsoft Store is the only place where you can download Windows 7 directly to your netbook” So having said that this is what you’d need to do: Purchase and download Windows 7 Starter Edition from the Microsoft Store as an installation file on your netbook just like any other program that you might download and install. In order to get Windows 7 Starter Edition you’ll need to purchase and download Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store as an installation file since it is not available for retail sale.
The bottom line is that any installation of Windows 7 Starter Edition is effectively a custom (clean) install.
Because Windows 7 Starter Edition is the lowest level operating system for the Windows 7 family there is no upgrade path from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Starter Edition so there would be no starting point to go from Windows XP Home or Professional to Windows 7 Starter Edition even if it was supported. NOTES FROM THE FIELD – Even if there were supported upgrade paths from Windows XP to Windows 7 you would still need to perform a custom (clean) install for Windows 7 Starter Edition. In order to perform an installation to your netbook from Windows XP you will need to do a custom (clean) install and then re-install your applications. For a little more in depth detail of Windows 7 starter edition please read my Windows 7 Starter Edition Hubpages article at One of the key factors to note is that there is no direct (in place) upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 7. Once Windows 7 came on the scene, Windows 7 Starter Edition had been made available for use (primarily) on these systems. Because of the hardware demands of Windows Vista, netbooks had been primarily released running Windows XP. With all of the enhancements that Windows 7 offers over Windows XP there are a number of netbook owners that are interested in migrating their systems to Windows 7.