Alright, if you still haven't heard about the Windows 7 Student deal offered by Microsoft, shame on you! For just $29.99, you have the privilege to install Microsoft's latest and greatest operating system, legitimately! The only downside of course is that you must be a valid student at a qualifying university or campus in order to be able to take advantage of this wonderful offer. The good news is that this offer stands until January of 2010 so there is still a lot of time for students to decide. But for $29.99, it's really hard to pass up on it. If you aren't a student or don't know anyone who is, then you can safely disregard this article as it will certainly not apply to you.
For those who have taken advantage of the deal or plan to, there is a method to create a bootable .ISO file from the resulting files you have downloaded from Digital River (the supplier for this student offer). Although there is an option to purchase an accompanying DVD for a small price, why would you do so when creating one yourself is so easy?
To skip the rest of this article and jump directly to the instructions, visit this website for the details. All credits for this article goes out to them.
In order to see if you qualify for the upgrade offer or not, you have to first supply a valid .EDU email address. In my case (I'm actually helping a friend do this because her computer needs a reformat and so that is why I suggested this offer), that was all that was needed on my part. They required nothing more from me in order to 'validate' my identity. Once you have supplied your school's email address, check it thereafter to find out whether you qualify or not. If you do qualify, then a link will be given to you so that you can go ahead with the purchase.
Once you decide to actually purchase Windows 7, clicking on the link will take you to the purchase page. Don't be too hasty and confirm everything. If you look closely, the deal also allows you to grab Windows 7 Professional instead of Windows 7 Home Premium at the same price! Two of the biggest differences between those two editions is that in the Professional version, you are allowed to join your computer to a domain and being able to utilize Windows XP Mode!
Once you have actually entered in your credit card information and whatnot, you'll then download a small file. No, this isn't Windows 7 itself! It's just a small download manager to help you download the actual Windows 7 install files. Now is the perfect time to copy the product key and keep it in a safe place. Remember, you are not paying $29.99 for the download files. You paid $29.99 for this license key so be sure to not lose it! Because you are downloading an entire operating system and not just some MP3 music file, it will probably take some time before it completes (it actually depends on your connection speed). With the download manager, you are allowed to actually pause the download at anytime and resume back at a later time. My Windows 7 Professional download is about 2.3GB in size.
Creating a Bootable ISO
Alright so after you are finished with the entire download, you should have 3 resulting files.
1. We need to first expand the resulting .exe file we have downloaded. Simply double click on the file to begin the extraction. Once done so, you will have a new folder called 'expandedSetup'. This is where the entire Windows 7 content is stored and is also the folder that will comprise of our ISO image.
Sure enough, if you want to just install Windows 7 over the current operating system you are using without first creating a bootable DVD, you can just go ahead and proceed from here.
Windows 7 only offers you an in-place upgrade if you are upgrading from Vista. If you are currently using XP, you will have to perform a clean install.
2. The next step in the process is to download a utility called 'oscdimg.exe'. This utility is what allows us to create a bootable ISO from that 'expandedSetup' folder. Download the tool from here. Extract 'oscdimg.exe' into your System32 directory (usually C:\Windows\System32).
3. The next step is really important. If you will be following the commands I use here in this tutorial, than you must move the 'expandedSetup' folder into the root of your C: drive. Don't worry about the other files because they are of no use anymore.
4. In our next step, we will need to open an elevated command prompt.
All we need to do at this point is to enter in this command (copy and paste it into the command prompt):
oscdimg.exe -u2 -b"C:\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com" -h "C:\expandedSetup" C:\WIN7.ISO
This command will instruct the oscdimg utility we extracted earlier to create an ISO file called WIN7.ISO from the expandedSetup folder and store it in the root of our C:\ drive. Once again, this only works if you have moved the 'expandedSetup' folder to the right location. As soon as you hit Enter, oscdimg will go to work and begin creating the ISO!
5. Once the ISO file has been created, all that is left is to burn it to a blank DVD! You can use freely available CD/DVD burning applications such as CDBurnerXP or ImgBurn to do the work. Remember that when selecting what to burn, you need to select the Image or ISO option. You are NOT burning a Data DVD so do not select that option otherwise the DVD will not boot!
Once the ISO has been burnt successfully, than that is it! Pat yourself on the back for saving $13 or so by taking the time to create your own Windows 7 bootable upgrade disc. Although many users have complained about why didn't Digital River supply us with the ISO file in the first place, for $29.99, this deal is just too sweet to complain about anything. Creating this DVD disc is certainly not a requirement but there have been many users who could not start the upgrade procedure from the expandedSetup folder. Therefore, Microsoft recommends creating the disc instead. In my opinion, having a physical disc at hand is much better than keeping and storing away the expandedSetup folder. But whatever the case may be, please remember to keep your upgrade key in a safe place! If in the future you need to reformat your computer again, you will need to use the key again.
