I purchased a brand new Toshiba NB205 for my wife, but I got mixed up and accidentally bought one with Windows XP instead of Windows 7 Starter Edition.

I was going to return it, but then I saw Windows 7 Home Premium Edition (not an upgrade) for $54 including shipping. So I purchased it.

But then I noticed that my wife's netbook doesn't have a CD/DVD player.

When I get the DVD, can I just copy it onto a pen drive on my desktop and load it onto my wife's computer?

Then how do I get the netbook to boot up from the USB drive?

Maybe I should just return the netbook and buy Windows 7 preloaded.

I can always sell the XP Home Edition and get my money back.

Beakybird

Not sure, but where did you find Windows 7 for $54.? Must be a college or Educator's discount.
DonM

[This message has been edited by DonM (edited 02-15-2010).]

Yep I think that returning it and getting one with Windows 7 already installed is the way to go. With the XP netbook you can't be sure whether there are Windows 7 drivers to support its hardware so I wouldn't want to take that gamble myself. It could be a real headache.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 02-15-2010).]

Your netbook should run Windows 7 easily and it can be done using a USB memory stick, but honestly unless you know what your doing it might be a bit tricky.
http://gizmodo.com/5257386/how-to-install-windows-7-on-almost-any-netbook


It applies to the beta version but it should be similar for using a retail setup.

If the store will exchange it for you then you might be best to do that.

if you do go down this route see if you can make a back up of your existing setup first - just in case it all goes pear shaped.



[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 02-16-2010).]

USB Stick shouldn't be a problem.

I don't think you have to make the usb stick bootable (but there are instructions out there such as http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2004/10/utility-to-make-usb-flash-driv.html and I've used the HP method in the past).

Just copy everything off the windows 7 dvd onto the stick, and run setup file (which I assume is setup.exe). This should start the Windows 7 installation sequence and off you go. It will completely erase your existing setup, including any trial / free apps, although given most of the apps they give away these days I wouldn't consider this to be a negative effect!

What I would do, however, before starting off, is go to the Toshiba support site and download the latest windows 7 drivers for your netbook and make sure they are also on the USB stick. If possible I would try to unzip or expand the files as well so that if Windows 7 feels the need to search for a driver it can just scan the USB stick. There's a freeware utility called Universal Extractor which so far hasn't failed to extract install/driver files from installer packages, here: http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

Alternatively get yourself a USB DVD drive with the money you saved getting such a good deal on Windows 7 in the first place!

Hope this helps

Just looked at those gizmodo instructions. I hope it's not that hard!

Thanks guys.

Yesterday, I found the same Windows 7 netbook in white for the same price as the XP netbook in pink.

So, having my wife's ok, I'm returning the pink one, and I'll probably sell the Windows 7 software.

Even though the white netbook only comes with W7 Starter Edition that can only run three applications simultaneously (not including utility software like Media Player), it's probably all my wife needs.

Beakybird

Beaky:

I think you made a wise decision. Windows, no matter what version, has a way of biting you in the posterior no matter what you try to do with it. I'm hoping version 7 will be as good as Microsoft claims. XP has been great for my computing needs and I'm grateful that I stayed away from the disaster they created prior to V7.
Good luck. Let us know how it plays out.

Dave Rice

A couple of friends have loaded Windows 7 and have had no problems whatsoever, they also find it significantly more responsive than Vista.