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Install Windows Vista from a high speed USB 2.0 Flash Drive

Steven Parker   on 01 March 2007 - 10:36 · 9 comments & 6045 views

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Why would someone want to install a client OS from a thumb drive instead of a DVDROM or over the network? One reason: Performance.

Installing Windows Vista from a high speed USB flash drive is in my experience the easiest & fastest way to complete a Windows Vista install. This is much faster than using a DVD, gigabit ethernet, or possibly even some external USB 2.0 hard drives, due to differences in access speed & transfer rate. To put this into perspective, y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast?

Imagine something roughly just as fast, except for doing installations of the OS on to actual workstations.

Link to: Full Article @ Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Post a comment · Send to friend Comments · There are 9 additional comments
#1 MightyJordan on 01 Mar 2007 - 10:44
Sounds good. Might be an idea I'll try out if I ever get Vista.
(1 reply) #2 Hidr0 on 01 Mar 2007 - 11:30
tell that to microsoft.... maybe they switch from DVDs to Flash drives...
#2.1 Helba on 01 Mar 2007 - 19:05
Aye. I think we either will or should soon see a time when all software ships on a USB key drive, considered the fall in flash prices.
#3 Siddharth Prabhu on 01 Mar 2007 - 11:53
Fabulous idea! Having Vista up and running in under 10 minutes is sorely tempting.
#4 vetneufuse on 01 Mar 2007 - 12:11
"y'know how installing Windows on a Virtual PC virtual machine from an .ISO CD image is really, really, really fast? " eh what? It's about 3 times slower on the systems ive tried it on with Vista as the virtual pc os since it uses a lot more compression then standard windows installs to read that WIM file
#5 Aero Ultimate on 01 Mar 2007 - 13:34
That sounds very interesting... I think I'll try this out as soon as the next vLite comes out, so I can try out both at once
(1 reply) #6 Nexus07 on 01 Mar 2007 - 14:08
Is this factoring in the time it takes to extract the ISO and copy it to the flash drive...?
#6.1 Notum on 01 Mar 2007 - 14:45
Probably not, but then again that time seems trivial compared to the time gained when installing Vista on 20 systems using the above method, compared to using the DVD.
#7 navsx on 01 Mar 2007 - 18:10
Gee... why not just install *directly* from the ISO image? I use daemon tools and boy, is it fast! It may probably only work for a dual-boot install though.

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