If you’ve got a USB DVD drive and a netbook with 16GB or more of storage, odds are you can install Windows 7 the old fashioned way. If you don’t feel like buying a DVD drive just to install an operating system or you have a netbook with just 8GB of storage, you might want to check out Gizmodo’s guide for installing Windows 7 on netbooks.
The guide offers step by step directions for downloading Windows 7 RC, and then loading all of the installation files onto a 4GB or larger USB flash drive which you can use to install Windows 7 on your netbook. There are also tips for squeezing the OS to fit on a machine with an 8GB SSD and for tweaking the operating system to play well with popular netbooks like the Acer Aspire One, Asus Eee PC, and Dell Inspiron Mini.
I’ve been running W7 RC for a few weeks on my Mini 10 with good results. I have even overclocked the FSB with setFSB up to about 1.6 Ghz (I have the 1.3Ghz version) and remained perfectly stable with little effect on heat/battery life. I would probably not have bothered had Ubuntu 9.04 or Netbook remix worked on this machine, but I’m happy with Win 7 and will probably pay for the upgrade in March.
I have been running Windows 7 RC since it was released a couple of weeks ago on my Acer Aspire One AOA 150 1.6 Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1GB DDR 160GB 802.11 b/g. Windows 7 so far has run great and I would recommend it to anyone my Acer even seem to generate less heat since I have installed Win7 RC. Overall I am glad I took the plunge and plan to upgrade to the once the actual retail release is available.
I’m really wanting to put this on my Acer Aspire One D150 (w/ 2gb RAM) but I just got XP Pro to where I wanted it. I’ll probably be making the switch soon, though.