Install or Repair Windows 7 from a USB Flash Drive

If you have a bootable Windows 7 installation DVD or a bootable recovery disc you can rip an ISO image of it to your hard disk, install the image on a USB 4GB pen (flash) drive and boot from it, all in two easy steps. If you already have a bootable ISO image you can skip the whole of Step 1 and go straight to the easiest and last step, Step 2.

The beauty of the method described here lies in the fact that once your USB pen drive has been made bootable, you can create a directory and store any special drivers or standalone applications you might need, which means you don’t need driver disks either. When the flash drive boots and the Windows Recovery Environment is loaded you can install things like OEM drivers directly off the flash drive.

Step 1: Create a bootable ISO image

 Download and install the freeware MagicDisc utility. Choose the correct version for the OS you will be installing the utility onto. MagicDisc will install to your system tray:

• Create a temporary directory on your hard disk. It doesn’t matter what you name it.

• Insert your Windows 7 installation or recovery disc into your computer’s DVD reader.

• Right-click on the MagicDisc icon and choose Make CD/DVD Image…:

MagicDisk defaults to the Universal Image Format (UIF), which we do not want. Before you do anything else, in the Output format group dropdown choose Standard ISO image file (ISO):

Note: There is a design flaw in the version of MagicDisc used in this walkthrough. You must select Standard ISO image file before you can select the output file. The options are displayed on the screen in the reverse order to how they need to be set.

 Choose the output file directory, which should be the temporary directory you were asked to create, and name your ISO image:

Click OK. MagicDisc will now extract the image of your bootable Windows 7 installation DVD or a bootable recovery disc and save it in the chosen directory:

Once MagicDisc has finished, eject your your bootable Windows 7 installation DVD or bootable recovery disc. You can test the image by using MagicDisc to mount it. To learn how to mount the image with MagicDisc, read the very short MagicDisc tutorial page for mounting images here. If all went well, when the image is mounted and Autoplay is enabled, you’ll see this:

 Click Run setup.exe. If you have a standard non-OEM Windows 7 you will see this:

 Congratulations, the hard part is done. Go to step 2.

Step 2: Write the bootable ISO image

Insert your USB flash drive into a USB slot.
Download, install and run Microsoft’s Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.
Choose the Windows 7 ISO image and follow the bouncing ball:

 Click USB device:

Choose the flash drive to write to then click Begin copying:

 The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool will warn you about erasing the flash drive, then it will format and write the ISO image to it:

 Once the imaging is complete, dismiss the window by clicking the close box in the top right corner:

Try to Test now

To test your pen drive’s ability to boot, simply reboot and use your PC’s BIOS features to boot from USB.

 

How to Repair this SVCHOST.EXE Application Error (Windows XP)

The instruction at "Ox101cf496" referenced memory at "Ox101cf496".
The memory could not be "read"
Click on OK to terminate the program
Click on CANCEL to debug the program

 When they turned their computer on and it came up to the user login screen. They were presented with this SVCHOST.EXE error message.  The only options the error message allows are to click OK to terminate the program or click Cancel to debug the program. After asking them several questions about what they did before turning the computer off, it became apparent that Windows Update had run before the computer was shut down.

Interestingly enough, even starting the computer in Safe Mode produced the same error. While the event log in Windows XP indicates the faulting application is truly svchost.exe.

To Fix this annoying error. Follow the steps below to fix this error.

• Click on Start, Run and type the following command in the open box and click OK
  
  services.msc
  
  
• Find the Automatic Updates service and double-click on it.
• Click on the Log On Tab and make sure the "Local System Account" is selected as the logon account and the box for "allow service to interact with desktop" is UNCHECKED.
• Under the Hardware Profile section in the Log On Tab, make sure the service is enabled.
• On the General Tab, the Startup Type should be Automatic, if not, drop the box down and select Automatic. 
• Under "Service Status" on the General tab, the service should be Started, click the Start button enable it.
• Repeat the steps above for the service "Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS)"

Re-Register Windows Update DLLs

• Click on Start, Run, and type CMD and click ok
• In the black command window type the following command and press Enter
  
  REGSVR32 WUAPI.DLL
  
  
• Wait until you receive the "DllRegisterServer in WUAPI.DLL succeeded" message and click OK
• Repeat the last two steps above for each of the following commands:
  
  REGSVR32 WUAUENG.DLL
  REGSVR32 WUAUENG1.DLL
  REGSVR32 ATL.DLL
  REGSVR32 WUCLTUI.DLL
  REGSVR32 WUPS.DLL
  REGSVR32 WUPS2.DLL
  REGSVR32 WUWEB.DLL
  

Remove Corrupted Windows Update Files

• At the command prompt, type the following command and press Enter
  
  net stop WuAuServ
  
• Still at the command prompt,
  
  type cd %windir% and press Enter
  
• In the opened folder, type the following command and press Enter to rename the SoftwareDistribution Folder
  
  ren SoftwareDistribution SD_OLD
  
• Restart the Windows Update Service by typing the following at the command prompt
  
  net start WuAuServ
  
  
• type Exit and Press Enter to close the command prompt

Reboot Windows

• click on Start, Shut Down, and Restart to reboot Windows XP

Although this method may not solve all of the issues with a SVCHOST.EXE Application error, I have found it fixed the problem with the 0x745f2780 reference error.

Other Issues with SVCHOST.EXE

I've encountered other issues with SVCHOST taking up 100% of the CPU Cycles. These issues are usually experienced with Windows Update in some form or another. To fix this frustrating problem, following these steps:

1) Download and install Update for Windows XP (KB927891)
2) Download and install an update for Windows Update Agent WSUS 3.0
3) Restart your computer and your computer should run better with slowing to a crawl because of SVCHOST.EXE