How do I install windows 7 on VirtualBox?

[rudimentary]

I've already done everything necessary including downloading the windows 7 embed from dreamspark now I just need to download/upload to virtual box but I can't seem to find how to do it. Can anyone tell me how because when I go to the create virtual hard drive I get lost.

[socratis]

Please have a look at the User Manual, Chapter 1.7. Creating your first virtual machine.

[rudimentary]

when I get to the part where I'm supposed to choose the CD/DVD allocation for Windows 7 it does not show up. I don't have IDE Controller as an option to upload the file, I'm not sure what I did or am doing wrong in the download.

[socratis]

Go to the VBoxManager. On the left select your VM. On the right side, under the "Storage" section click on the "Optical Drive" and choose the ISO you downloaded.



Note that my "Optical Drive" in the picture is attached to an IDE disk, yours maybe under SATA. It's the same thing.

[rudimentary]

(en_windows_embedded_standard_7_toolkit_x86_dvd_521705) this is the one I downloaded, is it the wrong one? if it is where else can I download the correct one from?

[BillG]

You will need a Windows 7 installation DVD or the corresponding ISO file. I am not aware of any legal free download.

[mpack]

I am not aware of any legal free download.

Someone else mentioned this download the other day, saying it was available (to students) as part of the Microsoft DreamSpark program. I have not found it, don't understand why Microsoft would be pushing Win7 to students (it may be an old download), and I also don't like that mention of "embedded" in the path.

That said, I just Googled it, and found this Wikipedia page. It does indeed seem that Win7 embedded was offered (and may well be useless in a VBox VM). I'd have gone with Win2K8 Server.

Strange though that this same download is mentioned twice in as many days, when the original release was 2009. My guess is that they aren't downloading it from the official MS site. Someone has copied it to a filesharing site.

[socratis]

I found it yesterday (https://www.dreamspark.com/Product/Prod ... oductid=31), but it requires registration which:
1) I won't do it and
2) I doubt that they'll give it to me without a .edu e-mail.

I also agree with the embedded title, but I've seen it work on a VM. But we're not there yet, the OP doesn't seem to be able to insert the ISO in the VM? Or it won't boot? They're really short on the details.

[mpack]

Same here: I'm not prepared to lie to check out an OS I already have legal installers for!

So it would help greatly if people using this download were to describe exactly what they downloaded and what form it takes (ISO? VM? OVA?). It doesn't read like it's a desktop OS to me.

[towo2099]

https://www.microsoft.com/de-de/softwar ... d/windows7

Sorry for german, but with a valid license-key it's not a problem to download Windows 7 as ISO.

[mpack]

Interesting. I have not come across that on an English language site. Interesting also that you have to provide a valid product key (for the correct marketing channel), before downloading it.

[socratis]

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... d/windows7
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... d/windows7
https://www.microsoft.com/gr-gr/softwar ... d/windows7
and so on and so forth...

[mpack]

Strange. I have in the past searched for such things and found nothing. Instead I had to order physical media from Amazon. I expect all this was introduced around the time of Win8, i.e. when the Windows Store got busy.

[socratis]

Actually (and I don't want to drag on in an unrelated topic, just to answer your questions), Microsoft ISOs were available for years from Digital River and they didn't even require an activation key. It was assumed that you had one. So, pretty straight available full ISOs for pretty much everything Microsoft, from servers to workstations. This article (http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft- ... -7-copies/) sums it up nicely. BTW, the article is dated 2015-02-16. If you only had asked earlier I could have saved you the shipping and handling costs for those DVDs