Use One DVD to Install All Editions of Windows 7

PC Technicians need to have the ability to install any edition of an operating system that is called for. Windows Vista allowed one to install any edition with one disk. Unfortunately, with the release of Windows 7, Microsoft has removed this ability and left us needing a disk for each edition or SKU(stock-keeping unit). In other words, if you have a Windows 7 Home Premium Edition DVD and need to install Professional, you would need to purchase an additional DVD. However, there are a couple of hacks to get past this.

Please, understand. This is NOT a way pirate a copy of Windows 7. If you install Windows 7 Ultimate, you need an Ultimate key. Period. Your Home Basic key will not work. This method is used to make things easier for technicians.

First, make a directory in the root of your C:\ drive and call it dvd_files and another directory named win_iso. Copy ALL of the files from your install DVD to the newly created dvd_files directory. Now, in the dvd_files directory, navigate to the sources directory and delete the ei.cfg file.

Right, that's it. When this file does not exist, when installing Windows 7, you will see a menu asking which edition of Windows 7 you want to install. You can also edit this file to install a different edition. But, just delete it and you can choose from all of the editions.

Now, we need to make an ISO that can then be burned to a new DVD.

If you don't have Microsoft Windows Automated Installation Kit(AIK) installed, download the iso, burn it to a disk, and install it now.

Once it's installed, from the Start Menu, open Windows AIK's Deployment Tools Command Prompt. Enter the following command:

oscdimg -n -m -bc:\dvd_files\boot\etfsboot.com c:\dvd_files c:\win_iso\windows7.iso

There is NO space between the b and the c. That is NOT a typo. The -n switch allows long file names. The -m switch ignores the maximum size of an image. The first path is to the boot image that the DVD will use. Then next is to the files that will be used to create the ISO. The last is where the ISO will be created. Here's more, if you want to delve deeper into oscdimg.

You may wonder why the Windows AIK is needed. If you use third party tools to create an ISO from the files in dvd_files, it will be incompatible with some older motherboards. The disk will not boot, instead you will receive an error something like, CDBOOT: Cannot boot from CD - Code: 5. This is because Microsoft's "ETFSBOOT.COM program does not handle file versions according to the International Standards Organization (ISO) 9660 specification." Read more about it at Microsoft's website.

Burn the newly created ISO with your favorite third party software and you're done. You can now install any edition of Microsoft Windows 7 using one DVD.

Windows Won't Boot!

If you are trying to boot to Windows NT, 2000, or XP and receive any of the following errors:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

Windows NT could not start because the below file is missing or corrupt:

X:\WINNT\System32\Ntoskrnl.exe

Windows NT could not start because the below file is missing or corrupt:

X:\WINNT\System32\HAL.dll

NTLDR is Missing

Press any key to restart

Invalid boot.ini

Press any key to restart

Your boot.ini file is missing, corrupted, or has errors in it. The boot.ini file contains a list of the operating systems installed on the hard drive and the boot options associated with those operating systems.

To repair the boot.ini file and get Windows booting again, you must use the Recovery Console. The Recovery Console allows users to perform tasks, using a command line interface(CLI), that will allow Windows to boot again. More on the Recovery Console here.

To use the Recovery Console from an install disk, make sure that your PC is configured to boot to your optical drive(that is a CD or DVD drive) and boot to the install disk.

After Windows Setup has finshed loading, you will be presented with a menu like the following:

This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft(R)

Windows(R) XP to run on your computer.

• To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER
• To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R
• To quit Setup without installing Windows XP, press F3

Of course, we want to press 'R' and use the Recovery Console.

Next you will be given a menu asking you to choose which Windows installation to log onto. Enter the number corosponding to the installation that needs to be repaired and press enter. Unless you have more than one operating system installed on your hard drive, you will only be presented with one option.

Now enter the Adminstrator password. If there isn't one, just press enter.

Now type 'cd ..' This will change directories to the root directory.

Next we need to delete the boot.ini file. To do so, the hidden, read only, and system file attributes must be removed. Enter the following commands:

C:\>attrib –h boot.ini

C:\>attrib –r boot.ini

C:\>attrib –s boot.ini

Now we can delete it

C:\>del boot.ini

Next we will use the bootcfg command. We will be using it to rebuild the bad boot.ini file that we just deleted. Read more about bootcfg here.

Enter the following command:

C:\>bootcfg /rebuild

After a few moments, you will see see a list of questions. The anwsers to these questions has been included:

Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All): Y

Enter Load Identifier: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition

Enter OS Load Options: /fastdetect /noexecute=optin

Obviously, the load identifier will change depending on which operating system you are working with. For further reading on the /fastdetect option. For more on /noexecute=optin

Your boot.ini file became corrupted somehow. Therefore, you should run the chkdsk utility to repair any errors on the harddrive. Please understand that this can take quite a while if you have a large hard drive or if you have a lot of errors. Enter the command:

C:\>chkdsk /r

Next enter the command:

C:\>fixboot

fixboot writes a new boot sector to the system partition.

That's all. We're done. You can now reboot by typing exit.

If Windows still won't boot, you will have to do a repair installation. More on that in an upcoming post.