Install a USB device

The first time you connect a device that plugs into a universal serial bus (USB) port,Windows automatically installs a driver for that device. After a driver is installed, you can disconnect and reconnect the device without performing any additional steps.

Before you install your device

Check the instructions included with the device to determine whether a driver should be installed before you connect the device. Typically, Windows detects a new device after you connect it, and then installs the driver automatically. However, some devices require you to install the driver before plugging the device in.

Also, while most devices that have power switches should be turned on before you connect them, others require that you turn them on during the installation process. Because of issues like this, it's a good idea to read the instructions included with a new device before you connect it.

If the instructions that came with your device contradict the information in this topic, follow the instructions that came with the device.


Plugging your device in
If your USB device uses a power cord, you should connect the device to a power source and turn it on before connecting it.

Next, determine which USB port you want to connect your device to. If your computer has USB ports on the front, consider using one of those if you plan to frequently connect and disconnect the device.

Plug the device into the USB port. If Windows is able to install a device driver automatically, you'll be notified that the device is ready to use. Otherwise, Windows will prompt you to insert a disc containing the driver for the device.

After installation is complete, check the information for your device to see if any additional software that might have been included with the device should be installed.

Occasionally you might have a USB device that Windows cannot recognize and that did not come with a disc containing a driver. If this is the case, you can try to find a driver for the device yourself. Start by checking the website of the device manufacturer. You can often download drivers from the support section of such sites. For more information, see

Tips for solving problems with USB devices.

Notes

• When connecting a device to a USB port on a USB hub, monitor, or other device that's plugged into your computer, ensure that the USB port has enough power to support your device. Smaller devices, such as USB flash drives and mice, and devices with their own power cords, such as printers, typically work properly when connected to an unpowered USB hub. Some devices that use more power, such as USB-powered scanners and web cameras, require a hub that has its own power cord to function properly. If a device doesn't work properly when connected to a hub, try connecting it directly to one of your computer's USB ports.

• Devices that transfer large amounts of information, such as external hard disks, scanners, and video cameras, function best when connected to high-speed USB 2.0 ports. Some older computers may include only USB 1.x ports, or a mix of USB 1.x and 2.0 ports. If your device requires a high-speed port to function properly, check information provided by the manufacturer for your computer to ensure that the port you're using supports USB 2.0. If your computer includes only USB 1.x ports, you can add USB 2.0 ports by installing a USB 2.0 card inside your computer.

Connecting and disconnecting devices

Most USB devices can be removed and unplugged at will. When unplugging storage devices, such as USB flash drives, you should be sure that the computer has finished saving any information to the device before removing it. If the device has an activity light, wait for a few seconds after the light has finished flashing before unplugging it.

If you see the Safely Remove Hardware icon in the notification area at the far right of the taskbar, you can use this to ensure that devices have finished all operations in progress and are ready to remove. Click the icon and you'll see a list of devices. Click the device you want to remove.

You can use any USB port when plugging in a device that you've previously installed. However, the first time you plug a device into a particular port, Windows will install the driver for that device again.

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Create Bootable Windows 7 USB To Install Windows 7 From USB Flash Drive

Although you can refer our how to install Windows 7 from USB guide to do the same, this tool simplifies the job. Here are the five simple steps that you need to follow to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 7 from USB device:

Note: You need a USB flash drive with a minimum of 4 GB of free space. And also please backup your data from USB first.

1. Download Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool and install it.

2. Run the program, browse to your Windows 7 ISO image using the Browse button.

3. In this step, you need to select your media type. As we are here to create a bootable USB, simply click on USB device button.

4. Select your USB flash drive from the drop down box and click on Begin copying button.

5. The Windows 7 USB/DVD tool will take a few minutes to complete the procedure.

6. You are done. Reboot you machine and start installing Windows 7

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How To: Install Windows 7 Or Windows 8 From USB Drive [100% Working Guide]

This guide works 100% for Windows 7 and Windows 8 unlike most of the guides out there. I have seen many sites/blogs that have “Install Vista from USB guide” but either with incomplete steps or not working guide. I have also seen some guides that don’t’ use proper commands in this guide. After spending many hours I have come up with this 100% working guide to install Windows 7 and Windows 8 from USB flash drive.

I just did this method on one of my friends machine and installed Windows 7 and Windows 8 . The main advantage is that by using USB drive you will be able to installWindows 7 or Windows 8 in just 15 minutes. You can also use this bootable USB drive on friend’s computer who doesn’t have a DVD optical drive.

The method is very simple and you can use without any hassles. Needless to say that your motherboard should support USB Boot feature to make use of the bootable USB drive.

Requirements:

• USB Flash Drive (Minimum 4GB)
• Windows 7 or Windows 8 installation files.

Follow the below steps to create bootable Windows 7/Windows 8 USB drive using which you can install Windows 7 or Windows 8 easily.

Procedure:
1. Plug-in your USB flash drive to USB port and move all the contents from USB drive to a safe location on your system.

2. Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

*Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+ Shift+ Enter.

Or

*Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

3. You need to know about the USB drive a little bit. Type in the following commands in the command prompt:

First type DISKPART and hit enter to see the below message.

Next type LIST DISK command and note down the Disk number (ex: Disk 1) of your USB flash drive. In the below screenshot my Flash Drive Disk no is Disk 1.

4. Next type all the below commands one by one. Here I assume that your disk drive no is “Disk 1”.If you have Disk 2 as your USB flash drive then use Disk 2.Refer the above step to confirm it.

So below are the commands you need to type and execute one by one:

SELECT DISK 1

CLEAN

CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

SELECT PARTITION 1

ACTIVE

FORMAT FS=NTFS

(Format process may take few seconds)

ASSIGN

EXIT

Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.

5. Next insert your Windows7/Windows 8 DVD into the optical drive and check the drive letter of the DVD drive. In this guide I will assume that your DVD drive letter is “D” and USB drive letter is “H” (open my computer to know about it).

6. Maximize the minimized Command Prompt in the 4th step.Type the following command now:

D: CD BOOT and hit enter.Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.

CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.

7. Type another command given below to update the USB drive with BOOTMGR compatible code.

BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H:

Where “H” is your USB drive letter. Once you enter the above command you will see the below message.

8. Copy your Windows 7 or Windows 8 DVD contents to the USB flash drive.

9. Your USB drive is ready to boot and install Windows 7 or Windows 8. Only thing you need to change the boot priority at the BIOS to USB from the HDD or CD ROM drive. I won’t explain it as it’s just the matter the changing the boot priority or enabling the USB boot option in the BIOS.

Note: If you are not able to boot after following this guide means you haven’t set the BIOS priority to USB. If you got any problem in following this guide feel free to ask questions by leaving comment.

Update on Jan 2, 2012: If you find this guide difficult to follow, please use the easy-to-use guide to create a bootable USB to install Windows 7 or Windows 8 using official tool... Click Here

This guide works 100% for Windows 8 as well. Make sure you follow all steps correctly and launch the Command Prompt with admin rights (as given in the guide) to avoid errors. Good luck!

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Lock and unlock your computer with a USB drive, secret-agent style

If you prevent access to your computer with just a password, you are missing out on an alternate (and more secure) way to lock down your computer.

Predator, a free Windows program, turns your USB drive into a key that locks your computer when it's removed. To unlock your computer, you'll have to plug the USB drive back in. (Talk about having secret-agent-style security.)

Anyone who attempts to access your computer without the USB flash drive will be hit with an epic "Access Denied" message. To get started, follow this guide:

Step 1: Download and install Predator.

Step 2: Once Predator launches, plug in your USB flash drive. None of the contents of the drive will be deleted or altered in any way, so feel free to use your primary thumbdrive.

When you insert the drive, a dialog box will appear asking you to create a password. Click OK to continue.

Step 3: In the Preferences window, take note of a few key settings. First, enter a secure, unique password in the "New password" field. If you lose your USB drive, you'll use it to unlock your computer.

If you'd like, you can check the Always Required box and you'll be asked to enter the password each time you use your thumbdrive to unlock your PC.

Finally, in the section under Flash Drives, ensure that the correct USB flash drive is selected. When you're done, click "Create key" and then OK.

Step 4: Predator will exit. When it does, click the Predator icon in the taskbar to restart the program. A few seconds later, the icon will turn green, alerting you that Predator is running.

Every 30 seconds, Predator will check to see that your USB drive is plugged in. If it isn't, your computer will dim and lock down.

Here are some extra tips:

• To pause Predator at any time select "Pause monitoring" from the taskbar menu.
• If someone tried to access your PC while it was locked down, you'll see the activity log when you log back in. You can see the log at any time by clicking "View log" from the taskbar menu.
• Predator's Web site has several cool how-tos, including one that shows you how to program your computer to take a snapshot each time someone tries and fails to log in to your computer. Check it out.

One obvious flaw comes with this setup: you'll always be down one USB port. But if you're sold on Predator, consider purchasing a USB hub to compensate.

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TOP 10 Free Internet Mini Apps – Perfect for a USB Drive

Do you carry a USB thumb drive with you at all times? If not, you should. You can get a lot of capacity for not much money, and keep your drive right on your keychain. These are great for backing up critical files, transferring files between computers, and more. Plus, if you canvas the world of free, open source software you can find a lot of cool applications with very small footprints that you can have on your pocket drive all the time. In this post, I’ll round up some of these miniature marvels, which you can load ultra-quickly for doing common tasks. The applications in this post are for Windows, and, in some cases Linux.

1.Qm 

from Pyric Interactive is an extremely small e-mail client, with a footprint of only 16K. It loads in an instant—faster than loading a browser-based e-mail client. You can also add it to your Send To menu for use with Internet Explorer, so you can fire off files to people without hassling within an e-mail client.

2.Miranda (774K) 

is a small, fast instant messaging client with support for almost all popular protocols. It’s designed to be resource efficient. It supports AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu and other instant messengers.

3.SpeakFreely (690K)
is a small VoIP application. You can use it to conduct calls over the Internet or any TCP/IP network. It also comes with limited PGP capabilities, so you can encrypt your communications if you choose to.

4.IrfanView (822K)

is one of the best graphics programs I’ve ever used, and you can even use it to create slideshows. It’s very fast to get into for tasks like working with screen captures and more. When I wrote about it before, lots of the readers agreed that it’s a great application.

5.FxFoto
is a good application for editing and organizing photos, and it works with Windows Vista. It comes with lots of templates you can use to attractively archive your photos.

6.SG TCP Optimizer (596K) 

is a great little program for tuning and optimizing your Internet connection. It doesn’t need to be installed—just run it and optimize. It tweaks TCP/IP parameters in the Windows Registry and many other parameters so that you get the best performace possible on whatever Net connection you’re using.

7.RemotePad (248K) 

combines a plain text editor with an FTP client. You can use it to edit and upload text, download text, and move files around with colleagues.

8.ASFRecorder 

is a Windows Media streaming client with a footprint of 368K. It lets you download, store and manage files in .WMV, .WMA, .WMX and many other rich media formats. You can use it with Windows or Linux.

9.Text2HTML (240K) 

converts plain text to HTML. It’s especially fast and good at taking a bunch of text files and turning them all into HTML.

If you find yourself using your USB thumb drive on foreign computers a lot, 

TinyResMeter(92K) is a fast, easy way to guage the system resources available to you.

Do you have any good tips on small and fast applications for portable use?

So Please right tips in comment BOX

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Top 10 Portable USB Application

It’s time once again for our featured Movers and Shakers post. Each week we are taking one software category and listing the top ten most downloaded apps in it.

This week we are looking at portable applications. These are the apps that can be carried on a USB thumb drive and can be used on pretty much any computer.

1.winPenPack Flash 1GB
Weighing in at first place, raking in 13,696 downloads this week, is winPenPack 1GB. It is a suite of portable applications. It has over 100 useful shareware apps that will make your life easier carrying them around on a USB drive. This is a must for tech support guys like myself! We have mentioned similar portable app suites on MakeUseOf before.

2.Little Registry Cleaner Portable Edition
Now we have all been in situations where we had to clean the registry on another person’s machine. In this situation you can run this registry cleaner to find and destroy obsolete registry entries.

3.winPenPack Flash School
Ah another winPenPack – this one is geared towards students. This pack comes with over 50 apps from 8 different categories all aimed at helping you learn and further your education. The categories are titled Computer, Geometry, Graphics and Drawing, Languages and Translators, Math, Music, Science and Utilities.

4.Uninstall Expert
For those pesky programs that leave behind remnants and other crap on your PC after uninstalling. If that iffy program you tried does not even have an uninstaller then Uninstall Expert is for you. It lets you run a deep scan and get rid of broken registry keys and files associated with the tool. Price: Free to try (7-day/12-use trial); $17.99 to buy.

5.PackageFactory for U3
Do you have a U3 enabled Flash Drive or Memory Stick? Have you ever wanted to customize your own applications to run on the U3 platform where you can plug your USB drive in and it launches the application living on it? Well this makes it SUPER easy to do and its free. Check it out.

6.Skype PortableCan’t install apps and you need your Skype? Do you use a lot of other people’s computers and want to bring Skype with you? It works the same way as the normal Skype but in a portable package. Don’t leave home without it! Before it was available officially, our very own Mark O’Neill had a write up on how to make Skype a portable app

7.CodySafe
There has been a lot of hub bub about Cody Safe. They say that you can use it to create a computer on a stick. After looking at it I say it is a way to create your own portable application suites and have a place to save the files you work on

8.CodySafe Admin Pack
This is a pre-created CodySafe pack for network admins, IT specialists and anyone who needs to deal with other peoples computers. You get a suite of apps but it also lets you script them so you can add commands before/after running an app from the menu. This can let you run batch scripts or registry files so you don’t have to do it manually.

9.winPenPack Flash Essential ““ Multilingual
This one offers up support for our non-English speaking friends. This is made for a 512MB stick and has apps in 7 categories. They are Graphics, Internet, Multimedia, Security, System, Office, and Utilities. There are a few freeware and shareware apps in the genre and usually the most popular of the bunch i.e. Firefox, uTorrent, GIMP, ClamWin, Foxit, etc.

10.FCleaner Portable
FCleaner is similar to the above little registry cleaner due to the fact that it cleans your registry and supposedly speeds up your Windows computer.

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Boot Windows XP from a USB flash drive

Boot Windows XP from a USB flash drive

Almost everyone who has worked with computers for any length of time at all has run into at least one situation in which a problem left a PC unbootable. What if you could return the machine to a bootable state just by inserting a USB flash drive though? Believe it or not, it is actually possible to install a bootable copy of Windows XP onto a flash drive and then boot a PC off of the flash drive. From there, you can use applications that you have installed on the flash drive (anti virus, anti spyware, disk repair, etc.) to fix the PC's problem. In this article, I will show you how.

What's the catch?

As with most cool new techniques, there are a few catches. For starters, not every PC is capable of booting from a USB flash drive. For the most part, computers manufactured within the last two years are generally able to boot from a flash drive. Older systems may require a BIOS update, or might not be able to boot from a flash drive at all.

Another catch is that not every flash drive will get the job done. The primary factors that limit your use of a particular flash drive are capacity and speed. Technically, speed isn't really a limiting factor, but booting Windows will be painfully slow unless you use a flash drive that supports USB 2.0.

The flash drive's capacity is actually a limiting factor though. Surprisingly though, there are size limits on both the upper and lower end. Your flash drive can't be too large or too small. There isn't really a documented minimal size for a flash drive. You just need something large enough to hold Windows XP and a few applications. As you probably know, Windows XP normally consumes over a gigabyte of disk space. Later I will show you how to use a free utility to trim the excess fat off of Windows XP and make it a whole lot smaller. Even so, I still recommend that your flash drive be at least a minimum of 256 MB in size.

As I mentioned, there is a maximum size for the USB flash drive that you can use. Currently, USB flash drives exist in sizes of up to 4 GB, and 8 GB flash drives are expected to be available by the end of the year. As nice as it would be to have 8 GB to play with, the flash drive that you use for this project can be no larger than 2 GB. The reason for this is because you will have to format the flash drive using the FAT-16 file system, which has a 2 GB limit. Presently, you are stuck using FAT-16 because most computers will not recognize a flash drive as being bootable if the drive is formatted with anything other than FAT-16.

Preparing your Windows installation CD

One of the requirements for creating our bootable USB flash drive is a Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installation CD. If your Windows XP installation CD doesn't already include Service Pack 2, then you will have to make a CD that includes Service Pack 2 through a technique called slipstreaming.

Other requirements

In addition to your Windows XP installation CD, there are a couple of other things that you are going to need. For starters, you will need the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. You can download this tool for free.

Another utility that you are going to need is Bart's Preinstalled Environment Bootable Live Windows CD / DVD, or BartPE for short. You can download this utility for free from the BartPE Web site.

In addition to the software requirements, you must verify that the PC that you will be using to create the Windows deployment has 1.5 GB of free hard disk space (minimum) and supports booting from a USB device. I also strongly recommend that the PC be running Windows XP Service Pack 2. Prior to Service Pack 2, Windows XP sometimes had trouble interacting with USB storage devices.

Formatting the flash drive

Now that you have all of the prerequisites taken care of, it's time to actually start setting up our flash drive. The first step in doing so, as strange as it sounds, is to format the flash drive. Windows will actually let you format a flash drive in the same way that you format a floppy disk. However, formatting a flash drive in this way will not work for this project. Furthermore, using Windows to format a flash drive directly has been known to destroy some types of flash drives.

Instead, you must format the flash drive by using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool that you downloaded earlier. To do so, simply open the utility, select the device followed by the FAT file system option and click Start.

Once the device has been formatted, you must make it bootable. To do so, you must copy the BOOT.INI, NTLDR, and NTDETECT from the root directory of your PC's boot drive to the flash drive. These files are hidden by default, so you will either have to configure Windows Explorer to show hidden files (including protected operating system files) or you will have to open a Command Prompt window and use the COPY command to copy the files.

If you choose to use the Windows Explorer method, then open Internet Explorer and enter C: into the address bar so that you are looking at your local hard drive. Next, select the Folder Options command from the Tools menu. When the Folder Options properties sheet opens, select the View tab. Now, just select the Show Hidden Files and Folders and deselect the Hide Extensions for Known File Types and the Hide Protected Operating System Files check boxes. Click OK to continue.

Booting from the USB flash drive

Now that you have formatted your USB flash drive and installed the boot files onto it, the next thing that you must do is to configure your PC to allow you to boot from the flash drive. This is all done through the computer's BIOS Setup. I can't give you specific instructions for this part, because every computer is different. I can give you a few pointers though.

You can access your computer's BIOS by pressing a specific key immediately after you turn the PC on. The key varies, but it is usually either [F1], [F2], or [Delete]. Once you are in the BIOS Setup, you should verify that all of your computer's USB options are enabled. This might include things like support for legacy USB devices or support for USB 2.0. If there is a time out setting for USB devices, you should set it to the max to insure that the system doesn't time out while waiting on the USB device to boot.

Next, find the section on boot device priority. Normally, a USB flash drive (which is usually listed as USB-HDD, but may be listed as a removable device) will have a very low boot priority. If the USB flash drive's boot priority is lower than the hard disk (listed as HDD) then the only time the computer would ever boot off of the USB flash drive is if the system were to fail to boot from the hard disk. You must therefore rearrange the boot device priority so that the flash drive has a higher priority than the hard drive.

Configuring Windows

Now that we have finally made it through all of the prep work, it's time to start setting up Windows. As you have probably already guessed, the process of installing Windows to a flash drive is quite a bit different from your normal, run of the mill installation. There are a couple of reasons for this.

For starters, a full blown Windows XP deployment takes up over a Gigabyte of hard disk space. When you are installing to a flash drive, disk space is a scarce commodity. Even if you have over a Gigabyte of space on your flash drive, you probably don't want to use it all on Windows. It would be nice to have room to install a few applications. Therefore, you need to trim the excess fat off of Windows.

The other reason why the installation process is so different from the usual Windows installation is because Windows Setup is not designed to install Windows to a flash drive. You therefore have to configure Windows using an alternate method.

The PEBuilder utility that you downloaded earlier can take care of both of these issues. PEBuilder is designed to create a build of Windows XP (or Windows Server 2003) that does not take up as much space as a full blown installation. Once you create this new build, you can copy it to the flash drive. For right now, I will show you how to create a basic Windows build and copy it to the memory stick. Unfortunately, it's rather difficult to install applications once Windows is up and running. Therefore, after I show you how to create a basic Windows build, I will show you how to create a build that includes some applications.

Begin the process by opening PEBuilder. When you open PEBuilder, you will see a screen similar to the one that's shown in Figure A. Simply enter the path to the Windows installation files (the ones from your Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installation CD). Next, verify that the Create ISO Image and the Burn to CD check boxes are not selected and then click the Build button. PEBuilder will now create the new Windows build.

Figure A

You must use PEBuilder to create a Windows build that will work with a flash drive.
Now, it's time to copy Windows to the flash drive. To do so, you will have to use a special batch file that's included with PEBuilder. Open a Command Prompt window and navigate to c:\pebuilder313\plugin\peinst. Now, insert an empty flash drive into the computer's USB port and then execute the file PEINST.CMD. You will now see a menu appear as shown in Figure B.

Figure B

PEBuilder uses a batch file to install Windows onto a flash drive.

Type 1 and press [Enter] and you will be prompted to enter the path to the build that you have created. Enter C:\pebuilder313\BartPE. Now, type 2, press [Enter], and you will be prompted for the target path. Enter the drive letter that Windows has assigned to your USB flash drive. After doing so, the menu is updated as shown in Figure C. The menu now displays the source path and the destination drive. Type 5 and press [Enter] to install Windows to the flash drive.

Use menu option 5 to install Windows to the flash drive. 

Installing applications

Now that I have shown you how to create and install a basic Windows build, I want to talk for a moment about how you can add an application to the build (prior to creating it). The PEBuilder program comes pre-configured to support a number of common Windows applications, but does not come with the applications themselves.

The reason why installing applications can be a little bit tricky is because most Windows applications modify the Windows registry. The build that you are creating is basically a collection of installation files, and the build itself does not contain a registry (the registry gets created when Windows is installed onto the flash drive). As such, PEBuilder uses a sort of registry emulator.

If you go to the C:\PEBUILDER313\PLUGIN folder, you will see sub folders for a number of different applications. If you open one of these application folders, you will see that the folder contains an INF file and a FILES folder. The INF file contains all of the information that would normally go into the registry, and the FILES folder stores all of the program's files.

To see how this works, let's install an application that I'm sure most of you are familiar with; Nero. Begin by installing Nero onto the machine that's running PEBuilder, as if you planned to run Nero locally on that machine. When the installation completes, copy all of the files from C:\Program Files\ahead\Nero to C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom\files. In this particular case, the nero burning rom folder is the folder that has been set aside for the Nero application. The Files sub folder is intended to store Nero's system files.

Now, you must take care of Nero's registry entries. To do so, go to the C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom folder and open the PENERO.INF file using Notepad. As I explained earlier, the INF file in an application's folder is used to store the application's registry entries. For Nero and all of the other applications that PEBuilder predefines, the INF file is pre-configured. You just have to make a few changes that are specific to your system.

In this particular case, the PENERO.INF file is designed to support both Nero versions 5.x and 6.x. Initially, the lines for both versions are commented out. You must therefore determine which version you have and then remove the semi colon from the beginning of the lines that apply to that version. If you look at Figure D, you can see how the two versions are separated.

Figure D

An application's registry entries are stored in an INF file.

Once you uncomment the appropriate lines, just replace "Your Name", "Your Company Name" and "Your Serial Number" with your name, your company's name, and your Nero product key. Save the file, and your set to go. The next time that you click the Build button, Nero will be included in the build.

Putting XP in your pocket
Running Windows from a flash drive isn't an exact science. Sometimes the process just doesn't work and there is no good reason why. As more PCs start to support booting from USB devices though, USB boots should become more standardized, and the technique should become more reliable.

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