One of the few things that has remained consistent when defining netbooks is that they do not have optical spindles. In other words, no DVD drive. So, how are netbook users going to install Windows 7 when it becomes commercially available soon? One simple solutio is to use an external USB DVD drive. I happen to have and old one and used it to install both Windows 7 Beta and RC on my netbook. But, if you don't have one, you probably need to spend between $70 and $90 to buy one these days. This is probably not an appealing purchase price point for something you might rarely use. Fortunately, there's this great utility with downloads linked from and described on the Tweaking with Vishal blog...

A Bootable USB: Utility to Create Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows Vista, Server 2008 and 7

This utility lets you build a bootable USB flash drive from either a Windows 7 DVD or ISO image. It looks like an easy to use graphically based Windows utility. I might give it a try when I get access to the Windows 7 RTM.

Via On10.net: An Easy Way to Create a Bootable USB Drive for Windows 7