How to Make a Mini Windows 7 Bootable USB Pen

If you want to have a portable Windows 7 operating system that you can boot from any computer, you can create a mini Windows 7 bootable USB pen using a tool called Make_PE3. This tool allows you to create a Windows 7 Preinstalled Environment (PE/Live) that contains Media Player, Explorer, IE8 and .Net Framework components. You don't need to download and install the Microsoft WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit) which is quite large. You can use your existing Windows 7 system or a Windows 7 DVD for the source files.

What You Need

A USB pen drive with at least 4 GB of space

A Windows 7 32-bit system or a Windows 7 32-bit DVD or ISO file

The Make_PE3 tool which you can download from [here]

The RMPrepUSB tool which you can download from [here]

Any Win7 driver folders that you might need for your hardware (e.g. WLAN/WiFi drivers or LAN/Enet drivers)

Any portable apps that you might want to add to your mini Windows 7 (e.g. antivirus, browser, office, etc.)

Steps to Follow

Extract the Make_PE3 files to the root of your C: drive (so that you have a C:\\Make_PE3 folder). It is important that you extract to C:\\ and not a sub-folder.

Run Make_PE3\\Make_PE3.exe as Administrator and select the options as in the screenshot below. If you are using a Windows 7 DVD or ISO file, mount it using a virtual drive software and use the drive letter assigned by it. Note: also tick the MAKE 7 PE .ISO box.

Wait for the tool to finish creating the mini Windows 7 files. Note the Workfolder displayed at the end (e.g. Workfolder = C:\\winpe3_x86).

Run RMPrepUSB as Administrator and select your USB pen drive from the list. Choose WinPEv2/v3 BOOTMGR option and click Prepare Drive.

Copy all files in the Workfolder\\ISO and Make_PE3\\MULTI folders to the root of your USB pen drive.

Add any Win7 driver folders that you might need under the \\drv\\x86 folder on your USB pen drive.

Add any portable apps that you might want under the Pstart\\Progs folder on your USB pen drive.

Check that the USB pen drive boots using the F11 key in RMPrepUSB to run the QEMU emulator or test it on a real system.

Conclusion

You have successfully created a mini Windows 7 bootable USB pen that you can use on any computer. You can enjoy the features of Windows 7 without installing it on your hard drive. You can also customize your mini Windows 7 with drivers and apps that suit your needs. This is a useful tool for troubleshooting, repairing, or recovering data from other systems.

Minipewindows7iso