Inside Vista’s new image-based install

[AtHomeBoy_2000]

Inside Vista’s new image-based install

Ya know, I am highly critical of Vista and I still am really under impressed with the OS, but the install process looks really sweat. Especailly for those of use who deal with large amounts of computers.

 

[dpaanlka]

Sooo... no configuration options at all???

 

[jdechko]

It's an interesting concept. It seem like restoring a HD clone. I think it's nice that you can customize the image with applications and drivers.

 

[mikes63737]

I tried Beta 2 on my computer (gasp!) and I was surprised how it didn't give me any choices. Now I know why... and I think that's really dumb.

For those of you who haven't tried Vista yet... it's terrible so far. There's no way it'll be out in 2007. It's slow, everything is HUGE, and this is on a computer that boots XP and logs me in in 12 seconds. Whatever.

 

[treblah]

I tried Beta 2 on my computer (gasp!) and I was surprised how it didn't give me any choices. Now I know why... and I think that's really dumb.

For those of you who haven't tried Vista yet... it's terrible so far. There's no way it'll be out in 2007. It's slow, everything is HUGE, and this is on a computer that boots XP and logs me in in 12 seconds. Whatever.

The post Beta2/pre RC1 builds are 10x better than B2. Got all the debug crap out and it really sped up. I'm not a fan of MS but it is not going to be anywhere as bad as we (the Apple fanboys) want it to be.

 

[Kaioshin]

This isn't such a bad idea. ...in theory. But imagine what's going to happen. The OEMs are going to create custum installation CDs so stuff is going to be prebundled by default, even if you reinstall the OS.

And another problem is that there might be "rigged" versions downloadable from the internet. Ones with malware already installed. The number of home users that download Windows from the internet is very high...

 

[ham_man]

Sounds like a good idea for those not as tech literate as others...configuration options typically just lead to confusion. This will give the majority of the Windows user base what they need (i.e. something that they can't possibly mess up), but will leave those who like to customize their machines out in the cold (hopefully Microsoft comes up with some sort of alternate install option)...

 

[jhu]

This isn't such a bad idea. ...in theory. But imagine what's going to happen. The OEMs are going to create custum installation CDs so stuff is going to be prebundled by default, even if you reinstall the OS.

how is that any different from what it's like now?

 

[MisterMe]

how is that any different from what it's like now?

The name is different which impresses the easily impressed.

 

[jdechko]

how is that any different from what it's like now?

Two Words: Eye Candy

 

[mkrishnan]

This seems like a basically nice idea to me, although I do rather suspect that this means the discs sent by OEMs will get even more useless than they are now (already, a lot of them don't really let you do clean installs). I personally am not a big fan of doing the analogues to delocalizing on OS X and so on. I've used too many Windows machines where the discs are god-knows-where and OS pieces are missing. I'd rather MS just install the whole OS....

Did I understand correctly, though, that a home user could use the WIM architecture with their home copy of Vista to set their computer up just the way they want it, and then make a WIM image of the drive as installed? That would be sweet. It would sort of integrate the features of CCC or SuperDuper into the OS.

The only thing I would like to see (sorry, it sounds fanboyish, but it was something I really appreciated the first time I did an OS X install) is an analogue to archive and install. I think that feature is a gem.

 

[mikes63737]

how is that any different from what it's like now?

Now, if you pay Dell extra for a "Genuine Microsoft Re-Installation CD" then they can still slip their free AOL stuff in there, but if you bought a Dell before this was relesased, then you would get like 8 CDs, and one was for Windows, one was drivers, one was "multimedia" (aka free trials), one was for DVDs, one was for CD burning, one was for AOL... you get it. Now they can combine all of them together and force you to install all of it.