Koala is a new software with a clear aim: to make as easy as possible the installation of new Windows Operating Systems on machines without an optical drive, for instance a net-book or a net-top.

The net-book phenomenon has exploded in the last years, machines with low purchase price and performance levels more than adequate for daily tasks and more, and it have undoubtedly helped to spread such products on a worldwide level.

With the philosophy of low cost and small size, all these systems are provided without an optical drive: this hinders a bit the novice user wishing to update his or her net-book with one of the latest version of Windows, usually distributed on DVDs. The same argument can be applied to any other compact machine, like a net-top or a server.

Koala helps you to solve the problem in a easy way, thanks to its simple and clean interface: with just a small number of steps the program will make for you an auto-bootable USB thumb drive that will allow you to install the Operating System on your machine, all without the typical annoyance of half-functioning tools or complicate commands in a command prompt: Koala will handle everything for you!

To use Koala, you only need to meet the following requirements:

• A Computer equipped with one of the following Windows Operating Systems: 2000 Professional or Server, XP, Vista, 7, Server 2003, Server 2008, Server 2008 R2
  
• .Net Framework 2.0 Runtime
  
• An installation DVD of one of the following Windows Operating Systems: Vista, 7, Server 2008 or Server 2008 R2 (if you are a Technet, MSDN or MSDN-AA subscriber and you have the ISO file, you'll just need an ISO mounting software like SlySoft Virtual CloneDrive)
  
• A USB thumb drive with a total capacity equal or greater than 4GB

You’ll just need to follow these simple steps to get your USB thumb-drive installer:

• Step 1: Run the program
  
• Step 2: Insert the thumb-drive and the installation DVD, then scan to find source and destination drives
  
• Step 3: Start the procedure
  
• Step 4: Wait for the software to complete the whole procedure. The thumb-drive creation process could take from 6 to 10 minutes on a good-speed thumb-drive like a Kingston DataTraveler USB 2.0. The time will depend on some factors, like the Operating System version chosen as source and the USB thumb-drive performances.
  
• Step 5: remove the USB thumb-drive from your PC

Doing these 5 easy steps, you will be able to install your copy of Windows using the USB thumb-drive you just made
You will, of course, have to pay attention about the boot devices order in the BIOS configuration menu of the machine on which you will perform the installation.