Test and use ChromeOS without installing it:

1. Download a compiled release of ChromeOS. This is the easiest way, you may of course compile it on your own, but that is not part of this tutorial. Use the torrent mirror for fastest downloads. Once it’s done, unpack the image file (ChromeOS-Cherry.img)
2. Connect a USB memory stick (at least 1GB) to your computer
3. Download and unpack Win32DiskImager and launch Win32DiskImager.exe. Click on the little folder symbol and select your image file unpacked in step 1. Select the proper drive letter of your USB memory stick in the Device section. Then click Write and confirm the window warning your about a potential physical corruption on your device.
   
4. Once it finished writing, unplug your USB device and plug it into the computer you want to test ChromeOS on. Make sure your computer is configured to boot from USB devices as first priority. If your computer is a netbook (e.g. Asus Eee PC), try the steps under Prepare the Asus Eee PC to boot from USB devices in my tutorial on Windows 7 on the Eee PC. Most other computers will have a similar BIOS configuration, though.
5. Boot from the USB device and wait a few seconds. ChromeOS shouldn’t take long to boot (around 5 seconds on my Eee PC 900).
6. Login using facepunch as both username and password.
7. There should be three symbols at the top right corner. The first is showing your battery status (in running ChromeOS on a laptop), the second your WiFi and Ethernet configuration and the third some menus. Click the second one and connect to your WiFi/Ethernet network. This is really necessary since all applications in ChromeOS are web-based!
8. Enjoy ChromeOS!

Troubleshooting:

• I am connected via WiFi/Ethernet but can’t open websites.
  This may be due to a misconfiguration in your network settings. Sadly, ChromeOS currently has no GUI to configure it, but you can try to do it with the terminal. Press CTRL + ALT + T to open terminal, and go on using Linux commands (e.g. ip addr to see your network configuration, ping to ping other network devices, sudo bash for root user, …)
• My screen resolution is not at its maximum.
  I had this problem a few times and there was no way of fixing it (xrandr in terminal didn’t work and told me that VGA1 was disconnected). Probably ChromeOS has some problems with the display drivers, but restarting the computer always helped.
• Flash/YouTube videos are lagging.
  This happens probably also due to bad/missing video drivers. I don’t think there is a solution for it except finding and installing fitting display drivers for your device and Linux on your own. Hopefully Google will fix this in the final release.

If there are any questions, please comment!

Related posts:

1. Hack and Reset any Windows 7 user password
2. Install Windows 7 on any netbook (Asus Eee PC 900)!
3. Play StarCraft multiplayer (LAN) on Windows XP/Vista

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!

Related posts:

1. Install Windows 7 on any netbook (Asus Eee PC 900)!
2. Hack and Reset any Windows 7 user password
3. Windows 7 Beta 1 (Build 7000) on Eee PC 900

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.

I will test out whether I can get Aero running on this version, see if it’s more stable than the old release and stuff like that.

New functions/issues and changes to the previous version (Build 6956):

• Graphics driver for “Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS” included, so full screen resolution (1024×600) now possible without driver installation
• Keyboard function buttons (volume up, volume down, mute, …) still not working without installation of Asus ACPI
• Even after installation of Asus ACPI drivers the buttons are not working… the volume up/down window shows up, but nothing happens, and a window pops up saying “Missing Audio Driver, disable Fn+F7,8,9. Please install Audio Driver” but the audio driver is installed.
• Internet Explorer 8 has now a “InPrivate” mode like Google Chrome’s “Incognito Mode”
• When trying to watch HD videos on Youtube with Internet Explorer 8/Flash Player 10 Windows completely freezes. Only restart helps
• After this Youtube HD crash, the whole Windows 7 system is fucked. Automatic system restore took 10 minutes to fix it, then I could finally reboot. So HD videos can destroy your Windows installation? Interesting…
• The Desktop Gadget Gallery is finally working! In Build 6956 nothing happened when you tried to access it.
• Windows 7 doesn’t recognize the other SDD with Windows XP installed on it. The explorer just shows the Win7 SDD as C:\ and nothing else
• When you click at the images in the task bar that replace the old image and text there, even tabs inside Internet Explorer are shown so you can go directly to the tab you want
• Everything runs much faster and smoother than before. Now you can have multiple applications running in the same time without them crashing all the time.
• Shutdown is still awful slow (takes around 3 minutes, that’s longer than starting up!)
• Windows still crashes when trying to run the Windows Performance Assessment Tool (WinSAT), at “Running: Media Foundation Playback Assessment v1.0.0.0 ‘-input C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\winsat.wmv -nopmp”, thus you can’t get a rating for your computer and Aero won’t be able to run.
• The built-in microphone is still not really working. It can hear something, but is soo silent, when you scream into it, the bar goes up only 0.5%. Something is wrong there.
• When one tab in Internet Explorer 8 crashes, Windows 7 will terminate it, but all the other tabs are still working (like in Chrome). After a few seconds, the tab is restored. This feature is actually not that bad.
• Reactivation from Stand-By is not working, the screen just stays black all the time.

More stuff will follow…

Related posts:

1. Install Windows 7 on any netbook (Asus Eee PC 900)!
2. Shrink Windows 7 to fit on Asus Eee PC 4GB SDD or any netbook
3. Make Windows XP and Office 2007 genuine!

If the image doesn’t satisfy you, see this video proof:

(In this video, I am running Build 6956, although the startup animation is not the correct one. I guess that the graphics card is not good enough to display the 3D animation. This way of installing Windows 7 will work with any version of Windows 7)

What do I need?

• DVD or Image file of Windows 7/Windows Vista
• 4 GB USB thumbdrive (Usually NOT MORE THAN 4GB! Booting from USB flash devices is often not supported on devices bigger than 4GB, but with some newer netbook, it still works. Smaller USB sticks won’t work either since W7 won’t fit on them!)
• Computer with DVD drive or Image Mounting tool or Image Extracting tool
• Asus Eee PC (or any other netbook)
• Approx. 3h of time

Steps covered in this tutorial

• Create a bootable USB thumbdrive
• Copy Windows 7 to the thumbdrive
• Prepare the Eee PC to boot from USB
• Install Windows 7
• Install necessary drivers
• Try to get Aero running

How can I install Windows 7 on my netbook?

Create a bootable USB thumbdrive

First of all, if you haven’t got an external DVD drive, you will need a few tricks to install any Operating System on the Asus Eee PC since it has no CD drive.

But luckily the mainboard is quite cool and supports booting from USB devices, such as an USB thumbdrive. For Windows 7 Build 6956, you need at least 2.3 GB memory, so rather go for a 4 GB stick. Rumors that USB booting supports only 2 GB are not true!!

Plug the USB thumbdrive into another computer and download the following tool package:

Download USB_PREP8, PeToUSB, Bootsect.exe

Extract all the files inside and navigate to the usb_prep8 folder. Inside, double-click the executable batch file called usb_prep8.cmd. You will see a screen like this:

Press any key to contine, after a few seconds it will show you this window:

Make sure the options “Enable Disk Format”, “Quick Format” and “Enable LBA (FAT16X)” are checked and the correct USB drive is selected in the dropdown list above. This formatting process will erase all data on your USB thumbdrive! Save all files you need before formatting it! Then click start, click OK and click YES in the window asking you whether you really want to erase all files. After a few seconds, the stick should be formatted. Now close the PeToUSB window and the remaining console window.

The thumbdrive is formatted in a way that supports booting now, but the boot record is still not correct. In order to fix that, you have to use the other tool you extracted, called bootsect.

Press Start, Run and enter “cmd” (without the quotation marks), then press enter.

In the console window showing up, navigate to the path you extracted the bootsect folder to. You can use the “cd” command (change directory) and enter the name of the next folder afterwards (e.g. “cd Desktop”) to access the folder, or enter “cd ..” to move one folder back. If you enter only the first part of the folder name, e.g. “des” and then press TAB, it will auto-complete it to “Desktop”. This way you have to navigate into the bootsect folder.

Inside, enter “BootSect.exe /nt60 I:” and press enter to prepare the boot sector. Replace “I:” with the drive letter of your USB thumbdrive! The option “/nt60″ prepares the thumbdrive for use with Windows Vista and Windows 7, if you want to install XP choose “/nt52″.

After pressing enter you should see something like this:

Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

I: (\\?\Volume{789ae78e-c3da-11dd-b1a9-000e2e405744})

Successfully updated FAT filesystem bootcode.

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

Now your thumbdrive is ready to be used as boot drive!

Put Windows 7 on your bootable thumbdrive

Now you have to move all the files required for installation to the USB thumbdrive you prepared. Now you have 3 choices:

1. Windows 7 is on a DVD:
   Just put the DVD into your DVD drive, open the Windows Explorer, rightclick the drive and select “Explore”. Now use CTRL + A to mark all files on the DVD, press CTRL + C to copy them, go to your thumbdrive and press CTRL + V to paste them. It will take a few minutes to copy all the stuff.
2. Windows 7 is an image file (*.iso, *.mdf, …)
   You can mount the image using a tool such as Daemon Tools to create a virtual DVD drive which tells Windows that the Windows 7 DVD is inserted although it isn’t
   When the image is mounted, you can follow the instructions of 1.
3. Windows 7 is an image file and I don’t want to mount it:
   You can use any of the various extracting tools like WinRAR or MagicISO to extract the image file just like a normal ZIP or RAR archive and copy all the files to the thumbdrive. If you chose MagicISO, rightclick in one of the file explorers shown on the top and select “Extract”.

Whatever you do, just make sure that ALL the files from the DVD/Image are on the thumbdrive afterwards!

Prepare the Asus Eee PC to boot from USB devices

Now plug in the prepared USB thumbdrive into your Asus’ USB port. Start the laptop and enter the BIOS setup by pressing F2 immediately after the grey Asus Eee PC screen showed up. Use the arrow keys to navigate to the Boot tab.

Now select “Boot Device Priority” and press enter. Make sure the first boot device is “Removable Dev.”! After that, press escape to go back, navigate to the “Exit” tab and choose “Save changes and Exit”. After saving the BIOS settings, the grey screen will show up again. Now press Escape, it will bring you to a screen where you can select the boot device:

Select “USB” and press enter. You will have a black screen for about 5 seconds, then Windows 7 setup will load!

Follow the steps of the installation until it is done! There shouldn’t be any issus, but if there are, please feel free to comment! After the installation, which will take around 2 hours I guess, the Eee PC with Windows 7 is almost ready for use!

Installing necessary drivers

Surprisingly, Windows 7 already includes WLAN and Audio drivers, so you can surf the internet and play music right from the beginning on.

Video drivers are not supplied. Without them, Windows 7 can only display a resolution of 800×600 and can’t use any of the special stuff, so you should get them. Sadly, Intel doesn’t supply and for Windows 7 yet, and the normal Asus Driver disk doesn’t even contain some for Windows Vista. You can download the latest Intel GMA 915 drivers here: Intel Download Center.

You have to run them in Compability Mode for Windows Vista in order for them to work! Rightclick the executable, select “Properties”, “Compability” and tick “Run this program in compability for: Windows Vista”. Then the installation should work.

You can do the same trick with all other driver supplied by Asus, but acutally you don’t need to do it. I just kept the drivers Windows 7 installed for me.

Aero on the Asus Eee PC

Even with the new Intel Graphics Drivers, Aero isn’t running! I didn’t find a way to get it started yet, even all the registry hacks suggested didn’t help. Either they work for Vista only and not for Windows 7, or the GMA 915 is too worse even to try it out. If you find a way for it to work, please tell me!!

Related posts:

1. Shrink Windows 7 to fit on Asus Eee PC 4GB SDD or any netbook
2. Hack and Reset any Windows 7 user password
3. Make Windows XP and Office 2007 genuine!

Well, I think that’s the most interesting stuff. If you want to see the complete report, look here: Asus Eee PC 900 Hardware Report

Related posts:

1. Gaming on the Asus Eee PC 900
2. Install Windows 7 on any netbook (Asus Eee PC 900)!
3. Update BIOS using Q-Flash for Gigabyte mainboards

Isn’t it amazing, that all these games, requiring quite good computers, run on a laptop with really spare hardware?

Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 900MHz
Memory: 1 GB DDR2-400 DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics: Mobile Intel(R) 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset 64 MB
Hard Disc: ASUS-PHISON OB SSD, 4GB + 16GB

Click here for Full Asus Eee PC 900 Hardware Report

That so many games are running is due to the fact, that the Asus hardware isn’t as weak as it seems. Normal game requirements are optimized for a Intel Pentium 4 processor, but the Celeron is a lot more powerful, so even games requiring 1.2 GHz on a P4 can run on a 900 MHz Celeron.
Then the graphics card is also quite good, just the texture memory with 64MB is a little bit short. The supported vertex and pixel shaders (V 2.0) are enough for many games, and the 4 pixel pipelines with a 300 MHz processing unit can render a lot.

See proof in the videos below (Here a playlist with all the videos on YouTube).

Garry’s Mod 9 (Half Life 2 mod):

To get it running smoothly, you should add a parameter in the launch options to use only DirectX 7.0 support: “-dxlevel 70″
Switch the resolution to 800×600, and all the other things to low. The graphics will still look quite nice, and it runs fine!

Call of Duty:

This game runs without any special change of settings.

Dawn of War – Winter Assault:

This game runs without any special change of settings.

Heroes of Might and Magic V:

This game runs without any special change of settings.

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) Vice City:

This game runs without any special change of settings.
You can find all the videos also here.

Related posts:

1. Asus Eee PC 900 System Details
2. Acer Aspire 8930-7665: First affordable Quad-Core gaming laptop
3. Assessing Virtual Machine Performance: #3 VMware Player