Windows 7 could be sold on thumb drives, but probably not
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted June 26th 2009 1:50PM
posted June 26th 2009 1:50PM
As you know, Windows 7 pre-orders begin today (unless you're lucky enough to be in Europe, that is). This of course begs the question: what is a Win7-aspiring netbook owner to do? External optical drives are pretty kludgey, in our estimation, and trip to the Geek Squad? Out of the question. According to CNET, a "source" of some sort is goin' around saying that Microsoft is planning on making the OS available on USB thumb drives for the ultra-portable market, although we feel that such devices are best left to the college students who rely on campus computer labs -- or the occasional J.Lo album. As for Microsoft, they've said nothing about any of this, although we have noticed that its online store has all three upgrades (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) available for pre-order download (at $49.99, $99.99, and $219.99 respectively). Problem solved, right?
Given the choice between optical or USB (putting aside download for now) I would prefer USB. Problem is that USB would cost them MUCH more to manufacturer then optical.
you can run almost all linux distros on a thumb drive. it makes it super easy to run an install oses ms should follow suit.
When you buy the Win7 download, do you still have to burn it onto a DVD as with the betas?
that was supposed to go to a different reply
Or, as biggie said, it was all a dream
So i am paying $200 for Vista with transparent start menu.... :-?
bugfixes
...and they moved around some things again.
You obviously haven't tried the RC or read reviews by people who have. It really delivers a much better user experience than Vista (and far beyond what XP ever had to offer). Go and do some real research and you'll see that most everyone loves it.
compared to what? With OS X being the direct competition, Apple has charged all their user base with $150 fee's for updating their operating system every year and a half. And each so called "upgrade" was identical to the last one.
However like the previous replies to your comment, you obviously have not used Windows 7 if you're asking this question.
At the volume of unit they are selling it would be easy to special order USB sticks that are pre-coded for the software on it. The registration key could be unique to that USB stick and to the install files on that USB stick. Much easier to track down those who buy and liberally share.
first of all i think that offering the option to buy your OS on a thumb drive is very good. This option ofcourse in addition to the normal CD option and the download one for users who prefer otherwise.
i was just wondering about the reading speed of the PC of USB and DVD. Will the installation be faster using the DVD option that the USB thumb drive. Since a company offering the OS on a thumb drive will often buy the cheapest one to increase its profit, which means this drive would have a slow reading speed.
one other thing, there radio buttons in the title !!!
Wouldn't that be great if it was? I would buy one
I would pay for a USB drive with Win 7 preloaded, only as long as there was not a premium charged. If the Disk is $100, the USB version should not be $150! Especially since a quality 4GB USB drive costs around $10 these days. I own 3 netbooks, and while I do own a USB CD-Rom I think it would be easier (not to mention faster) to load it from a thumbdrive. While I am quite capable of making a bootable USB drive from the disk, that is extra time I have to expend before getting started, so I would gladly pay the extra $10-$15 for it to arrive preloaded on the thumbdrive, but probably not much more than that.
If you're a MSDN subscriber, all of the OS's come as an ISO download. I imagine that's what the downloaded version of the OS is going to be. Granted, that may be a bit complicated for a lot of users - so they may have something else in place to make it a little more user friendly.
As far as I know (unsure because I've never done it) but you should be able to extract the ISO to a flash/USB drive and go from there with no problems.
Of all the sites to report this story, Engadget is the only one that managed to make it sound negative at every turn, even in the title.
I mean, even the Windows 7 screenshot is an ugly mess of shortcut icons.
Yes thats because it is a desktop one of the "experts" at Engadget use, probably on a macbook.
Pretty much every Windows desktop (but the one I use at work because I turn off desktop icons) is like that. People keep adding icons to their desktop because they think that's the best place for it. Since Windows really doesn't have a strict standard and controlled method for icon placement (or application install) in a categorized menu people will continue to put icons on their desktop. Windows is NOT user friendly in this manner and never will be until they restrict installations to specific rules. That's a known problem. Microsoft only has recommended policies that nobody follows. (Because, IMHO, they really suck.)
@Andir3.0
What? Are you too lazy to select an icon and hit that little key that says "delete"? If a child has a messy bedroom you don't blame the room, but the kid who can't keep the stupid thing clean.
I usually have no more than 5 icons on my desktop at any given time, ideally 3 or less.
just put the dvd in your desktop computer and install onto a netbook over wifi.
I could be shagging Megan Fox tonight, but probably not. I'd have a routine wank instead.
How long before some dipshit delete it and go into full blown panic mode
If anyone has an old Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive laying around (or still in use like me) that works fine to install DVD based software to a netbook.
USB Drive or Not...I pre-paid for my copy.. and I'm happay!
i think it's happening. Discs are on their way out, and good riddance.
Every computer (even netbooks and MacBook Airs) have a USB port. Flash memory is cheap. There's no reason not to.
I also think it's not a coincidence that Apple installed a bootable SD card slot on all the new laptops. Maybe Snow Leopard will ship on SD cards, Windows 7 on Thumb Drives. Then, we can start a Fanboy argument over SD vs. USB...
windows 7 on thumb drive! cool that's nice although all I want is microsoft relaxing a bit when it comes to tweaking with vLite. Now you can't install SP2 in vista if you deleted one of the million drivers for printers in the original install. So I hope this will be relaxed a bit in windows 7 when SP2 will come along (and it will happen!)
For me its more portable to use a USB thumdrive as an installer, compared to the DVD medium.
Dvd disk are supceptible to scratches and data loss due to wear and tear..in the long run you would either make a DVD back-up or buy a new one once its beyond repair.
Its so simple to create a Bootable drive using Microsofts own OS..
Diskpart
Bootsect
is all that you need..V-lite is also a good option
A Mac can be booted off a Firewire or (more recently) a USB drive so I'd certainly welcome the distribution of the OS via a flash memory stick rather than a DVD and I'd certainly support the same for Windows (or any other OS, for that matter). There are increasingly few reasons for keeping the optical drive and delivering the OS via a USB memory stick would be a major hurdle overcome, plus installation should be faster.
Windows 7 could be sold on 5.25" floppys, but it probably wont.
Look at me mom, i created my own news article.