With Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 recently going RTM, I’ve found myself installing them in quite a few different configurations. One configuration that I’ve recently ran into is installing it into a machine with no CD drive of any means. I know I could carry around a USB-based DVD drive but instead, I wanted to have a USB pen drive to install it from. After some research, I found that it was relatively easy to create such a tool!

1. Either mount the ISO or insert the DVD for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 into your computer. Let’s say it’s at D:\
2. Format your USB stick to FAT32 (I used default settings for everything via the Windows format tool). Let’s say it’s at H:\
3. Run the following command at a command prompt:

xcopy d:\*.* /s /e /f h:\

At this point, you should be able to boot off of your USB stick (pending proper BIOS settings on the machine you’re booting up from) and it will install Windows off of the flash memory! Easy as that! This has been done from Vista and Win7. I’m not sure about other OSes.

[edit]Am looking into if I’m missing something with making the device bootable. Something seems fishy here…[/edit]

Yesterday I got the thumbs up that I’m being sent to PDC 2009 by my company! I planned on going whether I was sent or not but it’s nice to not have to foot the bill out of my own pocket this year. In 2005 I was lucky enough that my company covered airfare and hotel while Telerik was generous enough to cover my registration for the conference and the pre-conference. Last year I wasn’t so lucky and had to cover almost all of it out of pocket but that’s what you expect as a contractor.

Here’s what I have to do:
1. Plan the schedule for my trip (will fly my lady out Wed. or Thurs. and make a bit of a vacation out of the rest of the week/weekend)
2. Decide if I’m going to the pre-conference [done, and yes!]
3. Pick my hotel (with this help and others) – Figueroa Hotel is looking nice if they have wifi
4. RSVP for the Palermo party [done!]
5. Find my flight ($300 + $30-$80 checked luggage fees is what it’s looking like for nonstop round-trip, thx Orbitz)
6. Plan my session schedule
7. Buy a dual-core netbook (if they’re reasonably available in time, otherwise I may have to go with an HP dv2z)
8. Don’t forget deodorant!