Though the demographic is likely small there are certainly a group of Media Center enthusiasts who have already started using a more centralized server setup to store movie media removing the need for a DVD drive on their actual Media Center machine. This goes for many main stream desktop machines as well, with the ability to buy practically any digital media online and download it directly the need for physical distribution is dropping quite sharply. If you happen to be one of these users but are in possession of the standard Windows 7 DVD though, how do we get the operating system onto our drive-less machine?

Though there are many versions of Windows 7 available for purchase on the Microsoft Store as a downloadable product most users will have picked up a physical version of the product (especially with lower prices to be had at retailers such as Newegg for OEM versions and 3-pack OEM versions). So the first step is going to be turning that DVD disk into something more portable. To accomplish this you’ll need at least one machine with a DVD drive in it and a program for creating a ISO version of the disk.

For this guide we suggest using OtivTech’s Virtual Disk. The program is simple to use, just download, install and run, select the drive you’ve placed the disk in and press the Create ISO button. Even better it’s completely free. Creating the ISO file will take a while to complete, somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-30 minutes depending on the speed of your drive.

Why create an ISO file instead of simply copying the data straight off the disk onto our hard drive? It is entirely possible to never create an ISO of the disk and still get a perfectly working USB install disk but the advantages of having a single file copy of the disk that can be stored in a central location shouldn’t be underestimated. Now is the perfect time to create that copy as well as it certainly won’t be at the top of the priority list once the operating system install is complete. Also, we can use this ISO copy with programs like vLite to create a trimmed down installation as well (check back soon for a guide to slimming down Windows 7 installs to the basics for a Media Center setup!).

Once we’ve got our ISO copy created Microsoft has a handy little app designed to turn that file into an installation copy directly to a USB or DVD disk. Microsoft’s USB DVD Download Tool can be downloaded directly from the Microsoft Store and makes installation disk creation exceptionally easy.

Fist choose the ISO file we created then choose which type of media we’ll be copying to, in this case a USB drive. In the next step you’ll have the a dropdown box with a listing of available drives to choose from. In order to create a standard installation disk for Windows 7 you’ll need a USB drive with a minimum of 4gb free space available. Just choose the appropriate disk from the dropdown and select “Begin copying”.

Once complete you can safely remove your USB disk and you’ve now got a complete working bootable Windows 7 USB installation disk.

That’s all there is to it! Check back soon when we’ll also be covering the details of trimming out the excess programs installed by default with Windows 7 that simply aren’t necessary for a Media Center only setup.