Creating a bootable USB key to install Windows 7 Pro

Hi there,

I have a computer that I need to reinstall Windows 7 Professional on. This computer does not have an optical drive, but does have several USB slots. I have a 64GB USB key that I am trying to use to create a bootable USB install disk. I have been sticking to using the "Windows 7 USB DVD Download Tool" to create the USB drive after having downloaded a third party application and getting a bunch of bloat ware and malware from the program (even though it was a highly rated CNET download).

I have read several different methods for how to create the USB key, most of which have not worked for one reason or another. The furthest I have gotten is an error saying "BOOTMGR is missing".

I think the most important thing to note in my case, is that in all the guides I have read the people having trouble creating the USB key have gotten their Windows 7 ISO from a DVD that they own.

I bought my copy of Windows from the Volume Licensing Service Center, and downloaded the ISO directly from Microsoft, so I have no physical media, and the ISO itself appears to be somewhat different from what people describe if they own the DVD.

For example, some of the guides I have read mention extracting the ISO (the one from the DVD) so that the user has access to bootsect.exe, and other files important for creating the key. When I extract my files from the downloaded ISO, I only have the following files:

autorun.inf

setup.exe

windows6.1-KB976932-ia64.exe

windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe

windows6.1-KB976932-x86.exe

To further complicate things, the reason I am trying to install Widows with a bootable USB, is that the computer only has guest user access (One guest user account, and one administrator account with an unknown password). The administrator password was lost, so we cannot run the Windows 7 setup.exe from Windows itself. Recovering the administrator password was a whole other situation that I tried to figure out, and have had no luck with either.

I think I am in a particularly ridiculous situation with this computer, can anyone offer any advice?

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