In this day of age, it's very practical to have a Windows 7 installation on your USB key, for many netbooks and devices don't come with CD/DVD drives anymore.
Windows Explorer does not have menu displayed by default like you were used to in previous versions. To activate and keep it permanently visible follow this tutorial.
Some installations or settings changes require you to restart your computer. In most cases you don't need to actually reboot it, you only need to restart the explorer.exe process.
If you leave your computer running on a 24/7 basis you might be interested in determining the amount of uptime that has accumulated since the last reboot.
