What's the next generation install media?

[nate42nd]

DVDs are becoming old technology. What is the next way we will buy windows at retail? Flash drive? ISO over the internet? Something to do with flash media? What do you think. It has to come pretty soon. The DVD drive is going the way of the floppy!

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

DVDs are becoming old technology. What is the next way we will buy windows at retail? Flash drive? ISO over the internet? Something to do with flash media? What do you think. It has to come pretty soon. The DVD drive is going the way of the floppy!

I was thinking it would go the easy way and be either both SD Cards and Flash drives, or SD Cards. =P

 

[zigzag3143]

dvd of the future

I was thinking it would go the easy way and be either both SD Cards and Flash drives, or SD Cards. =P

I like the idea and with the increase in memory and decrease in cost I see a future there.

Ken

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I like the idea and with the increase in memory and decrease in cost I see a future there.

Ken

Well heres my concept art for the day.

View attachment 15162

 

[zigzag3143]

nice art

Well heres my concept art for the day.

View attachment 15162

Nice I gotta get me one of those win 7 installers

Ken

 

[nate42nd]

I'll bet the next generation "Windows 8" or whatever will have choices like these. I almost don't need a DVD drive now except for software. Are DVDs supposed to last longer or be more stable than flash media? or is it just a cost thing I wonder?

 

[Frostbite]

I think DVD's have some life left in them yet. Mainly due to the cost of pressed media being so little compared to other forms of data storage. Just look at the humble CD, going since 1982.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

I think DVD's have some life left in them yet. Mainly due to the cost of pressed media being so little compared to other forms of data storage. Just look at the humble CD, going since 1982.

That is true. Look at Ubuntu for example, they will send free copies of Ubuntu x86, Kubuntu x86 and Ubuntu Server Edition x64 on CD.

They also sell DVD versions in their store, along with Flash Drives that have Ubuntu on them. They have the right idea and its working well for them.

 

[nate42nd]

That is true. Look at Ubuntu for example, they will send free copies of Ubuntu x86, Kubuntu x86 and Ubuntu Server Edition x64 on CD.

They also sell DVD versions in their store, along with Flash Drives that have Ubuntu on them. They have the right idea and its working well for them.

I did not know Ubuntu was doing that. Good idea. I just happen to be running Ubuntu right now for the first time in weeks or months...haha It's fun to play with now and then. If I wan't so familiar with Windows i would probably be running it a a lot more.

Interesting they are offering flash drives to install.

 

[antalgebra]

DVDs are becoming old technology. What is the next way we will buy windows at retail? Flash drive? ISO over the internet? Something to do with flash media? What do you think. It has to come pretty soon. The DVD drive is going the way of the floppy!

Win7 will be sold on USB thumb drives.

 

[nate42nd]

Win7 will be sold on USB thumb drives.

When it's first released or later? I have not heard this although it would not surprise me. Thanks for the info.

 

[ccatlett1984]

i really doubt it, unless the drives are read-only (not physically possible to be written to), or it would be way to easy for someone to alter the install media. Copying and pasting is much simpler than having to make an iso, edit the iso and then re-burn it to disc.

Let alone the price of media, dvd's cost pennies each to press, whereas even in bulk i dont see a 4gb drive going for less than $3 (US). Blue-ray or some other optical media will be the future install media, due to cost of mass production.

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

i really doubt it, unless the drives are read-only (not physically possible to be written to), or it would be way to easy for someone to alter the install media. Copying and pasting is much simpler than having to make an iso, edit the iso and then re-burn it to disc.

Even with read only you can still copy can't you? or is that considered 'write' ?

 

[ccatlett1984]

there are ways to make it a royal pain to copy the data off.

 

[misterck]

cant u already purchase xp and vista on usb sticks? or am i just seeing the hacked versions called usb editions cause people have made them to install from usb sticks?

 

[Dark Nova Gamer]

cant u already purchase xp and vista on usb sticks? or am i just seeing the hacked versions called usb editions cause people have made them to install from usb sticks?

USB versions from MS, those do not exist. Though people have made versions on USB Sticks and sold them at a slightly higher price then a retail version (DVD) of Windows.

Its not all that hard to do, I believe all you have to do is copy the files that are inside the ISO, to a flash drive? Correct?

Plus you need a computer that has the 'boot from USB Device' option within the BIOS. =P

 

[jw12345]

Read-only flash media mass produced is only a few bucks. It would also save a lot of shipping and retail space concerns. The price is so low compared to the cost of Windows itself it's trivial.

I don't think blu-ray will ever be the format simply because we have so many years left before we ever fill a dual-layer DVD with the installation files. By time the OS install files passed the ~9GB barrier, it'd be 6-8 years from now, and by then, disk drives in notebooks (and even some desktops) would be relatively rare and flash media will have dropped to the price of DVDs now.

 

[ciphernemo]

As much as we'd like to dream of installers distributed and sold on flash devices such as thumb drives, SD cards, etc., that isn't going to happen any time soon.

Optical drives will be around for quite some time because the formats are evolving and it's cheap, easy, and fast to stamp out DVD after DVD. Distributing electronics to install software is still too expensive, even with how cheap flash memory is now. The manufacturing processes are all in place for churning out optical media, and upgrading those any time soon isn't worth it.

The new format would obviously be Blu-ray discs. They won out the format war a while ago (even though I would have been happier to have HD-DVD win). But there's no incentive/motive for developers to release on Blu-ray until they reach storage limits on DVDs for possibly up to 3 discs (14-16GB or more depending on stamp process and file system). Right now, DVDs still rule as the primary medium for operating systems because downloading isn't a feasible option on a new PC with no O/S.

So although we'd all love to see installers on flash, I don't think we'll ever get that dream. If and when flash memory ever becomes cheaper than stamping optical discs, we'll probably have better/cheaper media genres out there.

 

[fseal]

Yeah, the switch over from CD to DVD as a distribution media was WOEFULLY slow

Wasn't untill installs reached 5-6 CDs before DVD became the norm for some things. And I STILL have a brand new (Released in the last few months) flight sim that is distributed in a 4 CDs box. Presumebly because there are still a significant number of people with only CDRs in their machines.

 

[ciphernemo]

Wasn't untill installs reached 5-6 CDs before DVD became the norm for some things. And I STILL have a brand new (Released in the last few months) flight sim that is distributed in a 4 CDs box. Presumebly because there are still a significant number of people with only CDRs in their machines.

Yup, that's usually the way it goes. Even before that, I remember buying the old King's Quest IV from Sierra for DOS. It came on something like 7 floppies, lol. It was far too long between floppy and CD distribution, even longer (but still slow and not complete) to go from CDs to DVDs, so I suspect to go from DVDs to Blu-Ray will be even longer, let alone any other media format.