upgrading windows xp sp2 to windows 7 without an optical drive?

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drewjustforyou

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TL;DR Question: Can we download windows 7 and update an unofficial xp sp2 o.s. to an official windows 7 without use of an optical drive.

My girlfriends rig is done, we are 1 sata cable and sata power cable short of finishing it, it is running windows xp sp 2 (an unofficial version from my dad) which was never inteded to stay on the computer long term, she already has a physical copy of windows 7 that she wants to put on the computer, but the optical drive is not hooked up until we get a sata cable (30 minute trip to the store, happening tomorrow). In the meantime we have an 8mb/s hardline into the house, we were wondering if we could DL windows 7, and update from xp sp 2 to windows 7 without the optical drive.

thanks all!
 
You do realize that there is no direct upgrade path from XP to Win7 right? So you would have to put Win7 on a USB Thumb Drive as Clown said and install it from there.
 
Just get a Win7 ISO and an 8GB or larger flash drive, then use the USB/DVD tool to create a bootable flash drive, then boot the PC with the flash drive inserted and you should have the Windows 7 installer. As you can't upgrade XP to 7, you will need to start from scratch and install a fresh copy of Windows 7. Remember to back up your data first. Also note that the tool will delete everything on your flash drive, so back it up too if you have anything on it.

I used this method to install Windows 7 Professional on my netbook and on my friend's new build before his DVD drive came
 
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