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If you've found yourself here, chances are you need to know how to install software on a netbook. You may have purchased one of these new, petite notebook computers and are faced with the fact that it does not have a built-in optical drive such as a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives. Before you consider installing software on a netbook, make sure that it is something that can be usable and worthwhile on it. Chances are you will not very much enjoy playing World of Warcraft on your netbook PC. So, how do you go about installing programs on a netbook?

There are a few ways to go about getting your software onto your new netbook computer. The first, and absolute easiest way is to download it from the internet. If it is available for download online, then all you have to do is point your web browser at the download link and away you go. Once your netbook has finished downloading the software, then you simply open the installer or unzip the file and then open the installer.

Install Netbook Software Using an External Drive

Another way is to purchase an external optical drive that will plug in to your netbook, usually either with a USB or a firewire cable. USB is, by far, the most common for this type of peripheral. These drives can usually be had for not too much money, and a bonus is you can use your netbook to play CD's or, in the case of a DVD-ROM your netbook could double as a portable DVD player to take on those camping trips where you're really going to be roughing it.

Netbook Software Install With a USB Drive

One of the most popular methods of installing software on a netbook requires having a second computer with an optical drive and a USB flash drive. If you do not have a USB flash drive, and need to purchase one, make sure it is at least 4 gigabytes (GB). This is slightly less than what a full DVD-ROM holds, on average, but is 5 times what a CD holds, so it should be large enough for most installations. A flash drive of 8 gigs or more should be able to take care of any installation task.

What you will need to do is to put the software disc into the PC with a drive. Try holding down the "shift” key while the disc is read to prevent the installer autoplay from starting. You will need to open up your file explorer window and locate the optical drive letter. If you right click on this and select the "explore” option from your context menu, it will open up the folder containing all files on the disc. You can then copy them over to your flash drive with a drag and drop from one open folder to another. Once you've done this, you can plug the flash drive into an open USB port on your netbook, and open the folder or drive letter where you copied the files to. You want to look for the setup.exe file or something similar. If there is an autorun.inf file, then you can simply right click and select "install” from the context menu. This should begin the autorun procedure programmed onto the disc to start when inserted into a drive, so it will accomplish the same thing from your flash drive.

You can also copy your software over to an external hard disk drive as well. The procedure would be a similar process to that described above.