Using VMWare fusion and Windows 7

Hi,
I recently purchased VMWare fusion and windows op system 7 and cannot seem to use the Windows 7 .exe file with VMWare fusion because the mac i downloaded it to doesn not recognize it... I do not have the disk copy of windows 7, it was downloaded from a microsoft affiliate designed to reduce the price for students (which i am) so obtaining a disk copy of the OS is not possible. How can i use the .exe file to be run on VMWare fusion? Any help or guidance to solving this problem would be greatly appreciated
Cory~

I have never heard of using an executable file to load an OS in Fusion. You need to have an ISO and then mount it and it will work fine. I have done this several times.

Windows.exe won't work. You need a .ISO file or a Windows disk. That's true for Fusion, Parallels and Virtual Box. All those programs require an .ISO file.

To ckwolfe:

What you purchased is an executable file which must be run in Windows in order for it to yield an ISO file. After doing that, you can either burn the ISO to a DVD and install Windows 7 that way, or, you can install the image directly as has been suggested by mdfuller.

Regards.