Bootable USB keys

Now available on Technet and MSDN – RC of Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

James O'Neill's blog — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:15:32 GMT

Hopefully the title is self evident. The servers are taking a real pasting right now, so you might find

Installing Windows Server 2008 on a headless server from a USB disk

Jose Barreto's Blog — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:08:49 GMT

I am installing Windows Server 2008 on a new server that has no video card and no DVD drive. It's an

64 bit – and the end of the line for some things.

James O'Neill's blog — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:54:28 GMT

I like 64 bit vista. It's proved be excellent at performance, reliability and application compatibility

re: Bootable USB keys

Wes Miller — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 00:17:08 GMT

There is not such a way - publicly - to set up a UFD (USB Flash Drive) for booting before Vista. There was an OEM only tool that can put a boot sector down.

For users wanting to follow your steps above - they should note that they shouldn't put Windows on a UFD - but if you want to use an earlier version of WinPE, they can use the steps you mentioned, and put setupldr.bin down as ntldr (just rename it). In that case they also don't need a boot.ini.