Some operating systems can be a pain in the rear to install if you don’t happen to have an optical disc drive for your computer. But if you’re trying to install most Linux-based operating system such ...

So you want to take Windows 8 for a spin on a computer that doesn’t have a disc drive? Not a problem. While Microsoft has only released a disc image of Windows 8 Developer Preview, you can use the ...

You can install Windows 10 by downloading a copy of the installation files onto a USB flash drive. Your USB flash drive will need to be 8GB or larger, and preferably ...

Installing Windows from a USB flash drive is more convenient and faster than optical discs. Plus, if you have a netbook or another type of computer without an optical drive, you don't have any other ...

Having bootable media ready can be a real lifesaver when you need to do a clean installation of Windows. Thankfully, it's easy to set that up. There are two main ways to create bootable media for a ...

If you want the ability to perform a fresh and clean install of macOS Sierra, then you should consider creating a macOS Sierra USB install disk. Not only will this walkthrough work for the macOS ...

Apple hasn’t shipped operating systems on physical media in almost a decade, but there are still good reasons to want a reliable old USB stick for macOS Mojave. Luckily, it’s not hard to make ...

OS X Yosemite has a lot of people excited, and for some good reasons -- a new, more iOS 7-like UI, AirDrop that works with iOS, calling from Mac, and a host of other really useful and fun new features ...

GParted is a hard drive partitioning utility that allows you to customize your disk partitions with a graphical interface. Partitioning can be useful in an office setting to create backup partitions, ...

Now that Apple has released OS X 10.9 Mavericks, you might want to consider creating a USB install drive for clean installs and future use. Ed Rhee Ed Rhee, a freelance writer based in the San ...

I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.

Editor's note: the below guide was first published in September 2011. An updated guide - How to clean install Windows 10 from a USB drive - is now available at the ...