This tutorial will show you how to shrink your copy of Windows 7 so that it will be as small as 3.8GB and will fit on the 4GB SDD of the Asus Eee PC 700 and 900!

Now follow the steps below to make your own customized version of Windows 7 for your Netbook. This is quite complicated compared to a normal installation of Windows 7, and perhaps there will be an easier way in the future, but until now, this is better than nothing, and you can have the other SDD for all the stuff you want to have on your netbook.

Thanks to Basti756 for this awesome tutorial! See the proof that it is working below:

Get Windows 7

You can download Windows 7 Beta 1 either from the official  Microsoft Windows 7 download site or via Torrent, which should be 100% legal since the official version has been released for public testing. Download torrent file.

Required software:

Prepare the Windows 7 image

First of all you have to put the Windows 7 disk on a diet to make it fit on the Asus Eee PC. To achieve this goal we use vLite. On first start you will be asked for your Windows installation files. If you have an ISO file just mount it with Daemon Tools/Virtual Clone Drive, in case you got a Windows 7 DVD put it in your drive. Then hit the ‘Browse’-button and point to your Windows files. You will be asked for a folder to copy them to the local harddisk. This may take a while. When asked for the Windows Edition, make sure to choose ‘Windows 7 ULTIMATE’. Choosing anything else will mess up the installation.

Afterwards click ‘Tasks’ on the left pane and choose only the two options ‘Components’ and ‘Bootable ISO’. Leave the other entries as they are. Then hit ‘Preset’ on the menubar, choose load, select the *.ini file you downloaded (’Windows_7_EEE_900′) and press ‘Components’ on the left pane. You can close the ‘Compatibilty’-popup. Make sure to select all languages except the one which fits to your keyboard. Then you will see a popup which offers three different methods of creating your installation. Choose ‘Rebuild One (Ultimate)’ and hit OK.

This may take a long time, so don’t worry. After this is done, you will be offered to create the ISO file. Click ‘Make ISO’ (NOT Exit at this point), choose the name and path to save and the process will start.

Now we’re done with vLite and you should end up with a 1.26GB ISO file.

Create a bootable Windows 7 USB thumbdrive

The second step is to create a bootable USB thumbdrive as described in my earlier tutorial about how to install Windows 7 on the Asus Eee PC 900. Use the ISO you created with vLite instead of the original Windows 7 ISO/DVD.

Now take another USB thumbdrive (128MB should be enough in this case) and create another bootable media with Acronis True Image. Insert the thumbdrive into one of your computer’s USB ports and go to Start -> Acronis -> True Image Echo Server and select ‘Bootable Rescue Media Builder’. When asked for the target media choose your small USB thumbdrive and after a few minutes you’re done.

Installation

Now install Windows 7 as described in my earlier tutorial about how to install Windows 7 on the Asus Eee PC 900 using the bigger USB thumbdrive you prepared.
You will have to install it to the 8GB SSD since it won’t fit on the smaller one, but don’t worry – we’ll take care of that. After a couple of minutes or even hours the installation should be done and you will end up with a working Windows 7 on your 8GB SSD. Now you’ll have to apply a few tweaks in order to decrease the size of the installation.

We’ll start with deactivating the pagefile for all drives. Therefore right-click on ‘Computer’ and select properties. On the left side choose ‘Advanced system settings’ and hit ‘Settings’ under ‘Performance’. Click the ‘Advanced’-tab and afterwards the ‘Change…’-button. No deselect the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’, select drive C:, choose ‘No paging file’ and click the ‘Set’-button right beside it. Now hit OK in each window until you see the ‘System properties’-windows again.

Click ‘System protection’ on the left pane this time, continue with ‘Configure’. In the popup choose ‘Turn off system protection’ and hit OK until… you already know that.

Now deactivate hibernation, since it takes around 1GB from your SSD. Click the Start-button, search for and select ‘Disk Cleanup’, choose drive C:, click OK and select every option available. Then hit OK again and we’re done, hibernation is disabled.

The last step is to decrease the recycle bin size. Right-click on it and choose 200MB for drive C:\

Reboot the Asus Eee PC now to check the drive space on your system disk. There should be something around 2.9GB used. If so, go on – if not check the steps again and repeat them if nothing else works.

Just in case you don’t have a USB HDD… format your Windows 7 USB thumbdrive now, because we’ll need about 3GB (better 4GB) for image creation.

Now plugin your Acronis-bootable thumbdrive and your USB HDD/4GB USB thumbdrive and restart. Make sure to boot the Acronis thumbdrive and choose Acronis True Image Full Version (in case you integrated the safe version, too). When loading finished (this may take some minutes) select ‘Backup’ and choose your 8GB SSD as captured device and the USB HDD/4GB USB thumbdrive as target. You don’t need to choose any compression, password protection or anything else. Wait about 10 minutes, then the process should be done.

After that reboot from the Acronis thumbdrive again, make sure that the other drive is still connected and choose ‘Add new Disk’ first. Choose your 8GB SSD, delete all partitions on it and reformat it or leave it unformated – it doesn’t matter in this case. Now you should be redirected to the main menu. Choose ‘Recover’ this time and select the image you created to restore. Afterwards you will be asked for a target disk – choose the 4GB SSD. During the next step choose ‘Resize target partition’, and the select the space AFTER the 200MB partition. Don’t delete this partition because Windows 7 needs it for start up. You should be asked for that so DON’T choose the option ‘Delete partitions on target media’. Afterwards you can start restoring the partition. This will take another 10-15 minutes.

When Acronis finished its job, prepare the USB thumbdrive you already used for the Windows installation again for the Windows installation. This time it doesnt matter wether you take the vlited ISO or the original ISO for that. Boot this thumbdrive again, choose your language and select ‘Repair this computer’. After Windows PE searched for your Windows installation you will be asked wether you want to quit or ‘Restart and fix Problem’ – select the second option.

Now you should end up with a working Windows 7 version on the smaller SSD with about 750MB free space. You can add drivers now and start installing software on the 8GB SSD.

This tutorial was prepared by Basti756, much appreciation for his effort!