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Inside Vista's Image-Based Install Process

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the how-the-whole-bloody-thing-works dept.

KrispyGlider writes "Vista's installation process is dramatically different from any previous version of Windows: rather than being an 'installer,' the install DVD is actually a preinstalled copy of Windows that simply gets decompressed onto your PC. It is hardware agnostic, so it can adjust to different systems, and you can also install your own apps into it so that your Vista install becomes a full system image install. APCMag.com has published an interview with a Microsoft Australia tech specialist on the inner workings of it as well as a story that looks at some of the pros and cons of image-based installs."

4 of 519 comments (clear)

  1. Pros & Cons summarized by neonprimetime · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This wasn't a Pros & Cons. It was a love-fest of the new Image-Based install process. Everything he wrote in that article was happy go lucky, no cons in site.

    • this means that the image isn't a bit-for-bit image of your disk layout, and hence you can apply the image to a new system without destroying the contents of the hard drive
    • Vista is hardware-agnostic, so you can use a single system image as a source for multiple hardware platforms, even if they have quite different hardware configurations
    • When capturing a system to a WIM file you can specify exclusions. For example, you can have a work directory on the system with temporary data.
    • Interestingly you can have as many images contained within one WIM file as you think you can manage, and any one of them can be marked as bootable.
  2. Article is stupid by MarkByers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The final linked article starts with this dubious sounding statement:

    The bottom is about to fall out of the market for imaging tools like Symantec Ghost ... The Vista install DVD is, in fact, just one big system image.

    But then immediately contradicts itself by pointing out:

    But this flexibility only extends to the installation of Windows itself. To clone a full system with apps installed, Symantec Ghost or a similar utility must be used to create that image.

    People don't use Ghost to make a copy of an unconfigured fresh install of Windows, they configure it first, then Ghost it. This new installer will have no effect whatsoever on sales of Ghost, or any other imaging software. After such a terrible start to the article, I'm not sure it's even worth reading the rest.

    --
    I'll probably be modded down for this...
  3. Is it the same thing that we see on Ubuntu? by namityadav · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So is this revolutionary install concept an exact copy of what we see in Ubuntu?

  4. Re: Appeal to Common Practice? by E++99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Just to play Devil's Advocate here, but why SHOULD they facilitate the use of other OS'es? Look at the customers who make up 99% of their base:
    In logical terms this is a fallacy known as an Appeal to Common Practice.
    If Linux distros can do it then Windows should be able to do it and should actually do it.
    That's hillarious. You mislabel the argument you're responding to as "Appeal to Common Practice", and then you put forth your own arguement, which IS the fallacy of "Appeal to Common Practice"!