Medialess Installation

Just a quick, and possibly dumb question. I've seen a lot of people having trouble installing Windows 7 by 'traditional' methods like burning the ISO to a DVD. Why are more people not trying virtual drive installations. In my experience, it's a lot less frustrating. And there are free programs that work fantastically. My favorite is Slysoft's Virtual CloneDrive. So, am I missing something? Is there a benefit to physical media installation? Thanks in advance. :)

I installed of a USB stick . . .

Really fast install and everything went very smooth !!!

Sexie, I read quite a few articles regarding people doing that. I'm glad it went well for you. Did you do it for a particular reason? A lot of the people I saw using USB drives were placing Win7 onto their 'netbooks.' Lack of options I guess led them to that. I just used VCD on my AAO, and it installed beautifully.

I did because it is, for me atleast (Kingston 30mb read very low access time), way faster then cd and i had it already ready . . .

I have several USB sticks lying around with different OS' on. vLite'd, nLite'd, etc. I perform re-installations on many of my friends and family's PC's, so it is the quicker when speaking of doing many installations with different keys and preferences.

skunksmash, glad to see someone that feels the same as me. I was feeling just a little overpowered! But I do see other peoples opinions as having merit. Like Hiker. If you really do find yourself doing OS re-installs that often, I could see it would be easier. My main reason for having ever asked this, was/is all the "install from USB" tutorials that were being written. For the average computer user, turning a USB drive into a bootable OS installation drive, can be a daunting task. Or maybe I under estimate the average user. :)

Lol sevsman! You're saying the things that make me ask why people don't use virtual drives. Like you said, no copying of files to anywhere. I'm not going to say that it's actually faster, but only because I'm lazy. I don't feel like checking the speed of a virtual drive vs. a physical drive. But I imagine the time saved by not burning it or transfering it, makes up for any dip in speed from a virtual drive. Anyone know any specifics?