Installing Windows on a netbook

Man of Honour
Man of Honour
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Gud tog everyone :)

I've been eyeing up a netbook so I can maintain my website during my long commute and it seems you can get a pretty well specced up machine for under £300. I need Windows so I can install my legit copy of Dreamweaver but I have two issues: many come with Linux and the others have Windows pre-installed with all their manufacuter hacks.

I don't want all that crap on my machine and I usually reinstall Windows bare with just the drivers. Problem is none of these machines have CD drives so is it possible to install Windows from scratch?

Can you put Windows XP on a machine that ships with a Linux distro? Are the drivers available? Do they have a bios and set to boot from USB?
 
Yes, matey. Most will have a bios that can boot from usb.

I recently got a EEE PC 900a that had linux on it, took the drive out and put my new RUNCORE 32GB drive in.

Used my Xbox 360 HD DVD drive to install an nlited version of Windows onto the EEE PC.

You can also install windows from a USB pen drive but it require a bit of messing around.

I'm going to try and put Windows 7 onto it also.

What Netbook you after ?
 
I installed XP on my eee701 using a USB CD-ROM drive. It's also possible to install it from a USB memory stick.
 
Ah ok, so looks like USB CD ROM is the way to go. I can probably lash one of them on using my USB-IDE adaptor then?

Not sure which model to go for but I think I want one with a conventional hard disk in so I can migrate from my current laptop. Some of them have 8Gb Flash drives and the others seem to have 120Gb hard disks. No middle ground which is frustrating.
 
I installed Windows 7 to my Acer Aspire One via USB (a quick google and you can find alods of help. Essentially, format USB to FAT32, copy all contents in the Disc/.ISO into the USB. BIOS change to boot from usb, viola~), works 100% apart from the flakey Wireless Driver, which isn't a big problem.

It starts up working but when restarted, it fails to detect the wireless. A quick uninstall of the driver, re-scan the system and let the os install it again. Restart and done. Then the cycle repeats. So I have my system go into hibernation when the wireless is working and have been like this since. No issues yet.
 
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