Install Windows 7 on Mac without DVD/USB

Question

I need to install Windows 7 on a Mac (preferably BootCamp but Parallels would be OK). The Mac has no optical drive and I do not have a sufficient sized USB stick. And am not able to get one in the timeframe needed.

I have a Windows 7 PC on the same home network, is it possible to simply copy the Windows 7 files across the network. I don't need to boot off the Windows 7 DVD to do this do I, since I'm basically creating a VM image using W7?

The 'proper' way to do a network Windows 7 install involves network booting and looks very complex, hopefully I can do this much more simply?

Answer 1

I assume you have Windows 7 DVD around. Note: if you have OEM-ed Windows 7 DVD, that will not work (i.e., if you have Toshiba notebook and few DVDs with it).

If you have standard Windows 7 DVD, then you can try the following:

1. Get an Infra Recorder (InfraRecorder Portable would be good) on you current Windows machine
2. Use it to strip your original Windows 7 DVD to an ISO file.
3. Copy the ISO file over the network to the Macbook
4. Mount it with Parallels
5. Create new Paralels VM, use that ISO as bootable virtual DVD.

In this case you should be able to boot Win 7 into your Parallels VM.

If you need temporary Win 7 installation, you can use this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495.aspx?ITPID=neweffc. It's 90 days trial for Windows 7 Enterprise, and it directly can be downloaded as bootable ISO.