How do I legally download Microsoft Windows 7?

Let me start with the good news: yes, it is not only possible but quite straightforward to download and install Windows 7 on your Netbook. All you really need is a good network connection and some patience.

Well, what I suggest is a tiny bit more complicated, actually, because I suggest you have at least an 8GB USB drive that you can make into a bootable install device. That'll protect you if things go south or if you have a second computer that you might also want to upgrade. It also feels less ephemeral, so if you're a "media" guy like me, having a physical object that contains the new installable Win7 OS is a good thing.

Oh, you also need one additional thing: a credit card. The least expensive option is if you're already running Windows XP or Vista: A Windows 7 Home Ultimate Upgrade, which runs $119.00 regardless of where you dig around online.

The release of Windows 7 also heralds the introduction of the Microsoft online store too, which you can find at store.microsoft.com. What's amazing is that it took this long for them to sell their own products directly to consumers. It alienates their channel, but from a consumer perspective, it's like taking your car to the dealer: probably a bit more expensive in the long run, but they know your vehicle better than anyone else. Plus it'll be more profitable for Microsoft, but that's not really our concern.

Start out by going to The Microsoft Store and looking for the handy "buy Windows 7" button:

You'll see a list of different versions available. Check the feature grid if you'd like, but I find that for my needs, Home Premium is plenty. One great Windows 7 feature, by the way, is that you can upgrade from one version to another with little cost, at any time. No big "upgrade" task, just additional features added. Helpful, Microsoft, thanks!

Ready to buy it? Click on "Details" (don't ask me why it doesn't say "Yes! Buy Me!", I'm not the UI designer). Now you'll see:

This is where I found a funny glitch, actually. I decided I'd do the download, but have Microsoft send me an install DVD juuuusssttt in case, something I could put on my shelf in my office for the proverbial rainy day. When I chose the "Download + Backup disc" option, however, I was told it was "temporarily out of stock", though either "Download" or "Ship it" was in stock. Very odd.

Fortunately, it's easy, as I said earlier, to create your own backup media so that's what I did instead, saving me $14.95.

Click on "Add to cart":

Enter your payment information (I've opted not to show my own credit card information here, I hope you'll be okay with that, dear reader. :-) and you'll see:

This is, of course, the single most important step for any online vendor, the point at which they get to gig your credit card account and actually get paid.

Hopefully it's a success and you get to:

You can see that the standard download is 2,295MB (2.2GB), but since we want to make a USB drive installer device, what we want instead is the ISO image, so you'll want to click on "Additional Download Options", which reveals:

I opted for the 64-bit ISO, knowing that the Windows 7 installer will automatically choose between the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the operating system based on the capabilities of your individual hardware configuration. Download the 32-bit version and you're guaranteed you'll never get the 64-bit version...

This is where it gets exciting, or tediously dull, depending on your perspective. Click on "Download" and go out for a long drive, take a vacation, watch a movie, or take your dog for a walk around the neighborhood:

MUuuuuccccchhhhh time passes (it took over two hours for me to download the ISO on a reasonably fast cable modem connection) and you'll have an ISO image in your Downloads folder:

You can't click on that, however. What you need to do is download a second tool that isn't easily found on the Microsoft Store: the Windows 7 USB / DVD Tool. Fortunately I did track it down and here's the link to download the Windows 7 USB / DVD tool. [if you're paranoid, which is healthy in this day and age, you can also find the link on this Microsoft Store FAQ page]

It's super-small, so it'll be a very fast download, and this one should auto-run:

If you see something similar to what I have here (e.g., with Microsoft as the publisher), then you're good to go. Click on "Run" and make sure you have your USB drive available and, ideally, plugged into your computer.

Cheery and ready to go, though the red's a bit ominous. Maybe flowers and butterflies? :-)

Click on "Next", as usual with a setup tool, agree to the licensing terms, disclaimers, promises not to share the secret Microsoft soda recipe, etc etc and you'll eventually get to the point where the tool is actually installed:

Doesn't take very long before you've installed the handy little too:

Click on "Finish" and actually launch the new app (its icon should have appeared on your Desktop automatically). Now you find that it's actually a Microsoft Store branded application, which suggests it's going to get a lot of use for downloadable software, a great thing especially for those of us with Netbooks:

Click on "Browse" and navigate to your Downloads folder. Within (as I showed earlier) you should find a file called "Windows7HomePremium64bit". Select it and click "Next":

Now you can choose between burning a DVD or utilizing a handy USB thumb drive. I opted for the latter so I clicked on "USB device" here...

Since I hadn't yet plugged my USB drive in, it correctly reported that there were "no compatible USB devices detected". No reason to panic. Plug in your drive, then click on the little blue recycle-esque button in the center of the window. That'll cause the app to look for newly attached USB devices, and hopefully find yours:

Now I looked at this and said "uh oh, 602MB free and I need 3GB. That's a problem". Turns out it's not, though, because the USB device is going to be reformatted (e.g. erased, so make sure you have backups of the data on the device). I clicked on "Begin copying" and got:

In fact, I'm good with that and there's no data on the device I needed, so I clicked on "Erase USB Device", and ...

Yes, really, I do want to erase the data and proceed. I clicked on "Yes"...

Yay! Formatting...

Copying files...

Done! Oddly there's no "Finished" button here: you need to click on the little "x" on the top right of the window, but you've created a Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium install disk that's actually your USB device. Nice job!

At this point I just unplugged and re-plugged the device back in to reinitialize it with Vista, and it popped up:

You betcha! Click on "Run setup.exe" and the heavenly choir sings:

There ya go. The installation is remarkably straightforward with almost zero configuration options or tweaks needed. It's not blindingly fast: it took almost three hours to upgrade my slick HP DV2 Vista laptop, including a couple of reboots, but, yes, it's quite possible to download a legal copy of Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store and install it on your Netbook. And, better, it's pretty darn cool.