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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."

9 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. not to be a douche... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The summary states "Windows has, until now, only been distributed on DVDs or via download" Calling BS , raise your hand if you remember windows on CD's, 3.5, or floppy... Windows has been distributed ion many methods.

    1. Re:not to be a douche... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 4, Informative

      And the 32nd floppy would have an unrecoverable read error during the install.

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  2. Re:It's Amazing by Jurily · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hint: 4,3 Gb is the capacity of a DVD. And it was compressed with squashfs, too.

  3. Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives by AndrewNeo · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think you're looking for UNetbootin.

  4. Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's not a new idea at all. Mandriva already does that and it has been doing that for years. I mean, since the days of Mandrake 9.2, I believe. That means since the days of Ubuntu 5.04, now that it appears that everything linux has been somehow reduced and limited to Ubuntu.

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  5. Re:It's Amazing by Korin43 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ubuntu fits on a 700 Mb CD and is just as completely as Windows. Maybe more because it comes with Open Office.

  6. Re:It's Amazing by cawpin · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, you get a fully functional system off the CD, perhaps minus some oddball drivers. It is no less than Windows. Net access is not required for the install.

  7. Re:It's Amazing by dov_0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've tested a lot of Linux distros, but most of the leading distros seem to fit on one 700mb CD. Full OS with a good suite of applications.

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  8. Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives by theaceoffire · · Score: 3, Informative

    "They very kindly replied thanking me for the suggestion, but alas, it never materialized..."

    ^_^ Actually, it did. Grab the most recent copy of Ubuntu on a live CD, boot into it, go to "System", "Administration", and click "USB Startup Disk Creator".

    It takes ANY ISO and makes a USB bootable with it. Have used it already, worked great for installing to an EEE.

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