Microsoft To Offer Windows 7 On USB Thumb Drives? 259
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 (Score:5, Funny)
And Microsoft chases OLPC once again [slashdot.org].
Re:It's Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Virus or not, Windows must be getting pretty good if this "data cap" shit is all they can come up with. The last Linux distro I downloaded weighed in at 4,3 Gb and it was nowhere near complete.
Yes, I know, there's Geexbox with its 20 Mb, but that's not a full OS.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
The last Linux distro I downloaded weighed in at 4,3 Gb
Installed size? Or disk size? Because many distros include hundreds (thousands?) of software packages that are not part of the default install.
Often, software types that MS would get into deep trouble for bundling with windows.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
Hint: 4,3 Gb is the capacity of a DVD. And it was compressed with squashfs, too.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
No version of Windows I've ever seen is "anywhere near complete". You have to download 3rd-party drivers and software, unless you don't plan to do anything but play minesweeper.
Re: (Score:2)
Like third party security programs, office software, communication software, anti-spyware, cd image burning, dvd playback, file transfer software, secure web browser...the list goes on and on.
Linux distros like debian and ubuntu come with everything windows does and more in terms of role. You can argue the programs are worse, but in terms of tasks...yeah.
Glad microsoft is finally following in unetbootin's steps with the USB deployment. This way if I ever went insane I could install Win7 on my x61.
Re: (Score:2)
I have Windows 7 installed on my x60 and it went fine with a USB CD/DVD drive.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't get the dock.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I've always wondered if anyone in the linux world was going to develop bindiffs for package updates. Of course, you have either chaining or n^2 necessary things to cache, but it might safe some bandwidth if implemented intelligently.
As to updates, Microsoft's updates every Black Tuesday are bandwidth killers too, I fail to see any significant difference here to be honest. If you have a linux box with little installed it will have low update needs. If you have a lot installed it will be high, but when
Re: (Score:2)
Fedora implements this. They call them "Delta RPMs". A link and a quote for you:
http://geeks.pirillo.com/profiles/blogs/fedora-11-review
A lot of Leonidas' improvements are under the hood, much like Snow Leopard will be. Tighter integration with YUM and Package Kit means that it installs software faster than Apt which Ubuntu and Debian use. It also has a feature by default called Yum-Presto. Which has been available since Fedora 8 and openSuSE 11. Yum-Presto creates Delta RPMs which contains only the changed code of an update. Downloading only what has changed, not the Whole file itself. What differs from the Ubuntu update system is that Yum-Presto does not require special .debs for updating. It just scans the RPM on a configured server and the Code on your computer and complies the difference. While the Ubuntu way of doing it is that special .debs have to be built by the developer to take advantage of this. Another feature of Yum-Presto is that when you install software, it can use code already on your computer so you can save bandwidth installing software too.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, Ubuntu inside 700 MB isn't really the point, now, is it?
Because Ubuntu today at 700 MB is both a far cry bigger than an OS was years ago, and a far cry smaller than many otherwise viable alternatives. Conclusion? OS's are getting bigger every year, and this won't stop any time soon.
And Optical drives are *not* getting bigger to match. Sure, there's Blue-Ray DVDs, but they just aren't getting the play in the marketplace that we all thought they would. In the dozen or so computers I have, NONE of them h
Re: (Score:2)
USB / flash is the perfect medium for distributing installation media,
I agree. The only issue are old motherboards that can't boot off of them.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
However each month of updates can easily overtake that amount. It's really a stupid point to argue on. *insert linux distro* is more complete... *win-version* would get fined if they added all that functionality (anti-trust bs). *linux-distro* takes a ton of bandwidth for updates. So does *win-version*.
The fact is, Windows has gotten to very stable and secure, with a fairly consistent & pretty UI. OSX is a really consistent UI on top of a stable unix core, (actual security is debatable). linux is
Re: (Score:2)
Re:It's Amazing (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
10 GB last time I checked (2 days ago) (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:It's Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
The last Linux distro I downloaded weighed in at 4,3 Gb and it was nowhere near complete.
Try Ubuntu.
BTW: the 4.3 GB distro was not "Linux" but Linux with a lot of applications.
Re: (Score:2)
If anyone has a big box of working 128 meg and 256 meg thumb drives to sell, please email larryish-near-gmail-dot-com
I am willing to pay on delivery, or trade out some tasty bits and bobs that I have in the workshop.
Sorry for the off-topic post, but I need a few dozen small USB sticks for an electronics project and haven't been able to find any on eBay.
I encourage this trend (Score:5, Funny)
The next step is to convince AOL to start sending out their software on thumb drives. Then we all win!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Not if they send out 64 MB thumb drives. :P
By the way: Does this still happen in reality? I haven't seen their CDs for a decade.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about that. Even if they were only 64MB, the fact that they are not read-only makes them much more interesting than their coaster counterparts. If they were just as prolific as the CDs were... I could see many interesting if not amusing projects springing up to make use of them. Sure they may not be turned into a solar arrays but I could still see them being used in other arrays.
I don't know what the practical limits are to chaining USB hubs and devices. I don't really care enough to find
Re: (Score:2)
And... who says 64MB isn't enough to be interesting? ----> http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ [damnsmalllinux.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
RAID.
Re: (Score:2)
It could be like floppy disks once were - they were cheap and plentiful enough that you could give them to someone and not have to worry about getting it back.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just put tape over the tab and you're good to go!
not to be a douche... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
IIRC, MS Office was offered on floppies as well.
Re: (Score:2)
yep, 32 of them, if I remember correctly.
Re:not to be a douche... (Score:5, Informative)
And the 32nd floppy would have an unrecoverable read error during the install.
Re: (Score:2)
this site [educationo...puters.com] claims that you could get Office 97 on 45 disks.
Re: (Score:2)
Office 97 on only 45 disks... isn't that false advertising?
Re: (Score:2)
They used some kind of weird compression to stick 1.7 MB on each disk.
Re: (Score:2)
There were 2 purposes of the odd disc format
1. To save money on floppies
2. Do make it harder to back them up - an early anti-piracy method
PS the first floppy was a standard 1.44 MB one. It included a driver for the format of the rest.
Re: (Score:2)
The stack I have here for Office 95 ends at 25, with disk 25 being PowerPoint Viewer. Though there were a bunch of different versions so I don't doubt it.
One thing that pissed me off a while back was one of the Windows upgrade disks, which would install on a blank drive provided you could prove you owned a previous version of Windows by inserting the install media when setup prompted you. Only thing is it would only scan the CD drive, so me with my stack of Windows 95 floppies was S.O.L. (at least without
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As I recall, Windows 95 was the last one to be distributed on floppy. I remember installing it, and it was a ridiculous number of floppies. Upwards of 20 I think.
Nope only 13. Windows NT 3.1 came on 22 though.
Re: (Score:2)
Less than $10 on ebay [ebay.com]
Re: (Score:2)
most bare-bones version of Windows 95, and one that installs without prompting for a CD key
If I recall correctly when Windows 95 asked for the product key you could hit ignore and continue on your way. I think Office 95 would except 456 then anything. But that's been years, my memory could be off.
Windows Live Live Distro finally means something (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ [nu2.nu]
BartPE?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe MSFT can copy Linux and make it a live distro so people can try it out before full install... wait, that'll never make them bite. Nevermind.
It may not be a "live distro," but Win 7 has already captured about half the desktop share of Linux. Operating System Market Share [hitslink.com]
Net Applications is mass-market oriented. If your gadget can access the web, Net Applications will track it.
W3Schools is developer-oriented. But even there Win 7 has 1/4 the share of Linux. OS Platform Statistics [w3schools.com]
It took Linux six d
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so average (Score:2)
Re:Not so average (Score:5, Interesting)
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. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I live in the middle of nowhere [google.ca] and it would take me less than 2 hours 30 minutes to download 4GB of data, and that's not even at maximum speed. My ISP isn't a huge company either, they manage phone and internet connections for small towns all over the province (where Bell/etc wouldn't even care to get the marketshare - too small).
You need to kick your ISP where it hurts (tech support, customer service, whatever).
Re: (Score:2)
It takes me DAYS to download a 4 GB ISO. (...) On "average" it takes between 4 1/2 and 6 days to download a movie.
Some quick math says that works out to 100kbit/s. I guess noone's disputing that, only that what you have can under no possible definition be considered "broadband". It's less than double ISDN, even - which is what I could get in a city of 150k people back in 1997. I guess the most positive thing I manage to say about your line is that it beats dial-up....
Re: (Score:2)
Trees? Yes, of course we have trees. In fact, you can just send me your carbon credit payments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/25/AR2009062503028.html [washingtonpost.com]
With enough payments coming into the area, maybe we can all get together, and convince the telcos to upgrade to optic fiber.........
Re: (Score:2)
"Duh" to bit-torrent"? What exactly is the difference between direct access, and bit torrent, assuming that my bandwidth is being used to capacity? The protocol maks little difference, it's the bandwidth. On a GOOD day, I will see 42 to 44 Kbs downspeed. Most days, the speed will vary from 30 to 36. On a bad day, 4 browsers on the line at the same time have problems navigating the web.
Re: (Score:2)
Using what?? Bitorrent? if so then duh..... If you have direct links to the files and are not using file sharing networks it should not be taking you DAYS to download an ISO
That kind of depends, something popular like Ubuntu on release date downloads much faster over file sharing. I can download the 700 meg ISO in 11 minutes. I'm mostly slowed down by my own crappy network(10 mbps so I max out around 1.2 mBps), but hey I've never paid for a computer part.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Lets play with some numbers. To be considered a broadband connection it has to be at least 256 Kb/sec. This works to about 32 KB/sec.
2.3 GB then would take almost 21 hours. 512Kb = 10.5 hours, 1024 = 5.25 hours, etc. (you can see the pattern)
Yeah, that would take a while. Even my home connection(5Mbit, so I'm going to call that 5000 Kb/sec (which I have held solid for a few hours at slightly above 600KB/sec) ) would be 1.1 hours. Still awfully long depending on if it was able to hold that the entire time.
P
Re: (Score:2)
The article to which you are referring is probably this one [arstechnica.com] It's not quite clear how 1.9 Mbs is the average. Is it a mode, a median, or a mean?
The paper behind the article includes this gem.
There are 8 megabits in a megabyte, so a 100 megabit per second connection takes 8 seconds to transmit a 100
megabyte file.
Re: (Score:2)
Really? The arithmetic mean can be surprisingly irrelevant.
Somebody is thinking at Microsoft? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Linux on USB Flash Drives (Score:3, Interesting)
On a related note, several years back, I emailed Ubuntu with a product suggestion. I asked them for "Ubuntu on USB Flash Drives", installable via a simple Windows executable. Double click the executable, choose your USB flash drive, and it would install on the USB flash drive and just work.
My thought was that it would make it much easier for Windows users that are curious about Linux to try it out. No need to burn a disc first (burning discs can be complicated for non-technical users), no need to boot from the optical drive to get into the Ubuntu installer, etc.
And since USB flash drives are read/write, you could even let them update packages, save documents, etc. A much better, more realistic experience than a read-only test drive of Ubuntu on CD.
They very kindly replied thanking me for the suggestion, but alas, it never materialized...
Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives (Score:5, Informative)
I think you're looking for UNetbootin [sourceforge.net].
Re: (Score:2)
USB drives are still more expensive and heavier compared to CDs.. They can easily order 50.000 cd's cheaply... When they offered Ubuntu for free, they were practically begging people to request up to 10 discs at once and give the ones they don't need to friends because the shipping costs were higher than the costs of manufacturing them.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, dude, because when they order 50.000 cd's they pay something like 5 cents for each manufactured disc, so the shipping price is the only real cost they had.
I distinctly remember they had on the page a note saying people should ask for at least 5 and give the extra discs around because it used to cost them the same to ship one or five discs or ten discs.
You wouldn't be able to do this with USB sticks because unlike CD's which fit nicely in an envelope, USB sticks are bulky and relatively heavy and cost m
Re: (Score:2)
I think he was referring to your use of past tense. A DVD weighs about 16 grams and a USB stick less than 30 grams according to some quick google searches, so that's not an issue. Using one of those padded envelopes (also cheap in bulk) I don't see why you couldn't easily stuff five or ten USB sticks in one either. The thing is still cost, even a cheap 1GB usb stick for a CD+ size release will cost you almost 5$ retail ex. VAT, even if you say 3$ in bulk + cost of adding image it's too much. Plus people mig
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ [pendrivelinux.com]
Pen Drive Linux to the rescue!!!
Re: (Score:2)
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/boot-usb-files.html [ubuntu.com]
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick [ubuntu.com]
Re: (Score:2)
No, he said he wanted a Windows Executable with a nice GUI that would automatically download the right soft (Some custom ISO) and let you store everything you need in your USB Pendrive, like codecs, office alternatives, Firefox, etc.
Something my parents could do over the phone as long as they have USB booting as default to migrate.
Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives == Mandriva Linux (Score:2)
Re:Linux on USB Flash Drives (Score:4, Informative)
^_^ 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've wondered why there are no usb ROM disks (Score:2)
It seems to me that a usb ROM would make a ton of sense for things like this. If not USB than SD cards - as these are becoming fairly ubiquitous pretty quickly.
Whoa! (Score:2)
Easy solution to this problem: Bribe fw nazi (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Let me guess... you're the firewall Nazi at your company.
Re: (Score:2)
Let me guess...you didn't even read the message that I posted.
"Check with your company's firewall nazi (that's one of the hats I wear during the day)."
('firewall nazi' is a title given by one of the corporate counsel at a place I used to work when our email scanning appliance blocked a non-work-related
Re: (Score:2)
This is Slashdot. We are the firewall Nazis.
If they were really on the ball (Score:5, Funny)
They would offer Windows 7 in a convenient suppository.
Re: (Score:2)
...and have Developers! coming out of my arse?
No thanks. Besides, Ubuntu is already brown and it installs from USB just fine. :D
What concerns me the most about this article... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, they just need to put a different type of chip in the thumbdrive, no biggie. The problem is that flash memory might be a lot cheaper due the massive amount of factories already tooled to produce it. Maybe they could include a physical write protect switch like you see on floppies, or something.
Re:ROM drives possible? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
One thing I noticed is that my hard drive light it pulsing every few seconds. I wonder whether that is a background indexing service doing its thing?
No, thats insert polling on your SATA ports, presumably because you have a SATA device that supports removable media (CDRom, DVDRom, ...)
Thats not a Hard Drive light, thats an I/O light. Nerds are supposed to know what that light is.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you tried going into "Resource Monitor" to see what's accessing the disk? Note that I'm assuming that functionality was carried over to Windows 7 from Vista.
Re:Idiots. (Score:5, Funny)
Whoever installs Windows 7 on a goddamn computer is a dumb, dumb motherfucker.
There, I fixed it for you.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who ever said that ? I've never seen it mentioned anywhere that 7 is faster than XP.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Why would anyone want to buy a capped connectio (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
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
From whom in the United States? And how do you connect when outside your home?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Ok I demand fiber for $15/month!
What's that? You say my only options for broadband are Verizon, Comcast and Clearwire? And none have fiber? And their cheapest plans for fiber are twice that, monthly?
Look, assuming you're talking about American dollars (thus, located in the US), you must realize that your situation is unique. The vast majority of the population doesn't have the ISP option you have. Whatever it is-- since you didn't share your provider, I suppose you could just be bullshitting.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And if your prohibits you from 5G of download in a day, then I hope you don't pay too much for it.
Mobile plans severely penalize those who download 5 GB in a thirty day billing period.
Re: (Score:2)
re: You'll know HDTV has become mainstream once HDTVs are in pawn shops.
I work for a pawn shop and we have several in hock, and have sold many more. I think its there by your standard.
Re: (Score:2)
Typical? Average? This entire discussion is full of shoddy statistics.
If Microsoft were to eliminate discs entirely, and distribute Windows 7 as a digital download, it would cut off millions of potential customers who use DSL. I know, I know, the average bandwidth "is" 1.9 Mb/s-- larger than the 256K/384K/512K/768K/1.5M DSL variants. But it doesn't mean that those customers don't exist-- if bandwidth was uniformly distributed, those slow lines would still comprise a substantial fraction of broadband connect
Re: (Score:2)
And even if they don't erase Win7, a virus will probably crawl onto it eventually