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Microsoft To Offer Windows 7 On USB Thumb Drives?

Posted by timothy on from the please-send-me-your-repurposable-drives dept.

Barence writes "Microsoft is reportedly considering offering Windows 7 on USB thumb drives to allow netbook owners to upgrade their machines. Windows has, until now, only been distributed on DVDs or via download. However, netbooks don't have optical drives and the Windows 7 ISO weighs in at 2.3GB, which would take several hours to download on an average broadband connection and potentially do serious damage to a customer's broadband data cap."

2 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Why would anyone want to buy a capped connection? by rolfc · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I have a 100/100 fiber in to my livingroom for 15$/month. Don't pay for slow and capped connections. Demand what you want

  2. Re:It's Amazing by Bombula · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Not complete? No shit.

    I downloaded Windows 7 RC and for most stuff it's actually fine - I'm using it as I write this. Not unbelievable, but quite good ... once it's working. Fast, pretty stable, all that stuff. But some serious problems getting it working.

    First, the activation key didn't work for me. I did it all legit: downloaded and installed W7 from microsoft.com, created a live.com ID, got the activation key, pasted it in and "we're sorry, the activation key you entered is not valid for this version of Windows". Just plain broken shit, no excuse.

    Dude, if you can't fucking get your basic shit together, why wouldn't I just use Ubuntu? With Linux, if it doesn't work at least I have the consolation that it's free.

    It's like test driving a prototype Chevy and the fucking _key_ doesn't work. Pro Tip 1, you moron engineers, the FIRST thing you make sure works on a new car/OS/whatever is the FUCKING KEY.

    The comedy continues. There's also a bug in the W7 RC that causes the OS to crash when running installer packages off CDs ... from Microsoft... So I, like hundreds of others, had to do a reg-edit hack to install MICROSOFT OFFICE. http://windows7news.com/2009/01/21/fix-for-installers-and-updates-crashing-in-windows-7/

    Pro Tip 2, you FUCKING IDIOTS: before you release a new OS for testing, the second thing after making sure the FUCKING KEY works is to make sure YOUR OWN FUCKING SOFTWARE WILL INSTALL ON IT.

    Seriously. This is stupidity on the "I forgot to put my pants on before I went to work this morning" level.

    --
    A-Bomb