Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft To Offer Windows 7 On USB Thumb Drives?
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."
It's amazing what kind of viruses you find on USB sticks these days!
And Microsoft chases OLPC once again.
My work here is dung.
The next step is to convince AOL to start sending out their software on thumb drives. Then we all win!
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
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.
Who hired them and how long do you think they will last at Microsoft? hohoho
Ok, being serious. It makes sense. With Time Warner slapping draconian download caps on those poor people in Texas, a USB flash drive for OS distribution in a growing netbook market shows some...slight...thinking ahead of the curve. Can you imagine the ire of not only having to download a 3.5GB OS onto a netbook but if you actually run over your cap and get charged EXTRA for it? Oh man. I would shoot my netbook.
Kudos to whomever pulled this rabbit out of the hat.
You may not be aware that "average" in New York City, and "average" in Backwoods Nowhere are entirely two different animals. It takes me DAYS to download a 4 GB ISO. Seriously, I wouldn't bullshit you. I use Firestarter firewall, and set it to shape traffice, giving priority to interactive (browsing) traffic, so I'm only using about 85 to 90 % of my bandwidth for a download. On "average" it takes between 4 1/2 and 6 days to download a movie.
Now that you realize that not everyone has the bandwidth that you enjoy, you might do a little research, and find out what percentage of the US population enjoys "fast" internet. Or not. No research is required to stick your foot in your mouth again. ;)
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
They'll probably just wire a standard flash chip shut with the same pin used for the write-protect switches that some of them come with. Then there will be some "hardhack" Slashdot story about someone who managed to put Ubuntu on an AOL or Microsoft flash chip after taking a soldering iron to it.
I think you're looking for UNetbootin.
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.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Whoever installs Windows 7 on a goddamn computer is a dumb, dumb motherfucker.
There, I fixed it for you.
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.
There is an easy solution to this problem: if you don't have a decent connection at home, download the ISO at work. Check with your company's firewall nazi (that's one of the hats I wear during the day). See if he/she objects to you downloading that ISO or if company policy prohibits this type of download. If you ask nicely, the firewall nazi will probably find a way to download that ISO image rather quickly and you won't have to worry about burning up your bandwidth cap at home or waiting five days for the download at home to finish. If you mention something like, "Hey, I heard you like Five Guys. Can I buy you a burger and fries sometime?" as you hand the USB drive to the fw nazi, he/she will be much more receptive to your request. It's all in how you ask. Am I going to download a copy of the latest Star Trek movie for you (even if some free F.G. is on the line)? *No.* Would I download an ISO from Microsoft for you if you ask in a pleasant tone? Probably. Also, the chances are good that I have already downloaded that ISO for my own testing or someone who sits near me at work has a copy of that ISO.
They would offer Windows 7 in a convenient suppository.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Isn't the news of Microsofts ideas. It's that the article already makes the assumption that you have bandwidth caps and Microsoft is having to work around them. On Microsoft's front, this is great. However, this just reeks of society accepting that bandwidth caps are here, acceptable, and we should just succumb to our limitations.
If the article had instead mentioned the "new unacceptable limitations being imposed by broadband ISPs" I would see it differently. Instead it states "...which would take several hours to download on an average broadband connection and potentially do serious damage to a customer's broadband data cap.".
To me, the article writer is already stating that bandwidth caps are here to stay, we lost the war on bandwidth caps, and we should rejoice that Microsoft has plans to overcome these obstacles.
This is always how major obstacles are overcome when the public cries.
1. Proudly display your new 'grand plan' and how it's 'needed' or 'helpful'.
2. Public outcry comes and you dash for cover to avoid being attacked.
3. Bring the program back a little at a time and convince the press (or buy them) into stating your plan as if it is already here and in use.
4. Bring your 'grand plan' to market. The public is sick of hearing about the negatives of the 'grand plan' and have decided that it WILL happen, there's nothing they can do about it, and should just accept that it is here to stay.
This happens with MANY things in life...Obama's 'grand' plan for health care, Bush's bailout plans, ISP bandwidth caps... I could make a very long list of things that you can read about that are worded as if they are here already.
I admit, the article is written with a .uk domain, so maybe the UK already has imposed limits. But I've seen wording here in the USA making statements implying everyone in the USA has bandwidth caps and we should all run and check them regularly.
I installed the Win7 Beta on a netbook as a test. It works surprising well (Vista did not, XP or Linux far better than Win7), except the video is screwed up for high end graphics applications like those silly new games that require the graphics capacity of a combined Pixar and Dreamworks production. One more more thing: Use mofo or some other less offensive term. The rest of us are able to maintain etiquette even when anonymously corresponding on line.
"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.
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
Windows 7 64bit install is 10 GB, even with significant amount of features turned off (and compressed,removed).
Also, when comparing Linux to anything else, install a full feature development environment to that OS along with Documentation which will also include debug libraries etc. For example Visual Studio and XCode on OS X. That is the real size for you to compare while there are many other effects like Windows help files (CHM) are really,really compressed to a point to choke low Mhz systems.
Another thing is, the amazing waste of space MS does by basically copying entire thing to local HD while installing. I wondered if they were that stupid and now we see the real deal, it was all for these kinds of feature plans. You know, user will likely delete the USB key contents somehow or they will get corrupted etc.