A challange if you will

[guartz]

At least, that's the way I see it.

I was wondering if it were at all possible to install 64bit win7 on a system currently using winxp 32bit, without using any external media. (like dvd or usb)

I've asked this question all over the internet, so I'm familiar with common responses to this question, which I will address right now. I'm hoping you pros might know more about this then others.

I've already managed to install the 32bit win7 on a different computer without using any external media. It was a cinch, just made a new partition, virtually mounted with magicISO and presto.

The above won't work when trying to install a 64bit win7, as the infamous "setup.exe is not a valid win32 application" message comes up. Nor can I use bootsect to have win7 load from a partition on reboot.

What I have done so far;

Created 20gig partition F:

unrared the win7 ISO to C:\win7

dumped boot folder, sources folder, and bootmng file to partition F: root directory.

I don't know what to do next, any ideas?

Is it even possible? Should I just give up on this and use a USB? Doesn't that mean failure? lol

system specs in question: Athlon 64 1.8ghz(o.c 2.6ghz), 3gig ram, 3650 AGP 500meg. WinXP sp2

 

[synergy]

Try booting to it from the network. Your NIC should have a boot-rom socket (PXE). If you search Google you should be able to find some solutions for making a network bootable image of Win7.

EDIT: these may help you:
Windows 7 now allows you to boot a native OS from a VHD file | Network Administrator | TechRepublic.com
Walkthrough: Deploy an Image by Using PXE

 

[guartz]

holy sh, I mean, that's a very good idea...

I'm gonna try that.

God I love this computer stuff.


edit: I ran into a hiccup,

PXE instructions you provided require Win OPK or Win AIK... I went to the windows website to acquire one, but
it said something about belonging to an organization or being on a development team with a company. I'm neither,
is there a way I can acquire this software, say, for educational purposes or something? Like a student license?

I don't even know what they are exactly, but I have a assumption they are some kind of imaging tools to write
OS on multiple computers, like ghost or something?

 

[KSoD]

Your not going to be able to do it on multiple partitions. It wont work. I have tried it myself and it is not possible.

The system will not boot from the data on there. It is made to be installed by DVD or VHD. That is it. You can get it by USB but that requires some work and modification to the image itself to get it working which would be hacking the ISO to work. Which is the same thing to get it working via a partition.

I have tried myself but with no success with trying to get it to install via the files just on the hard drive. It seems Microsoft has done something with the installer for Win7 to prevent this action. I know that with the Vista Beta i was able to do it. I have not tested a final build of Vista since but i have tried the Win7 Beta with only using the data on the hard drive and no partitions. I got no success.

I would say use a USB.