The rumor mill is rife with Windows 10 news at the moment as Microsoft nears the launch of its new OS in late July. There have been quite a few details released in the last week or two that have cleared up a few remaining questions about installing Windows 10 too, namely whether it will be possible to download a stand-alone version and install it on its own. That turned out to be the case, but there's even better news for Windows 10 users - a USB flash drive version.
German tech site Winfuture.de released an image showing both DVD and USB flash drive versions of Windows 10 stock listings. The OS will of course, be available to download online, and you'll be able to get hold of an ISO version too so you don't have to re-download it each time you reinstall Windows. Coupled with the fact you don't need to install Windows 7 or 8.1 beforehand (you can upgrade them though using Windows update), things are much clearer and haven't actually changed that much.
Image credit - Winfuture.de
So, what difference does a humble USB flash drive make and how on earth do you use one to install Windows 10? Enthusiasts and businesses have been using them to install Windows for years. For starters they're more durable than a DVD, take up less space and are easy to carry around. The optical drive is something of a fossil when it comes to PCs now too.
The optical drive is something of a fossil when it comes to PCs now. Many PC cases have ditched them to improve aesthetics or reduce space and very few sub 15in laptops include them too. The biggest reason to use one for installing Windows, though, is speed.
One reason optical drives are so antiquated is their terrible data speeds. The disc also has to spin up and is generally much slower to access than a USB flash drive. You're looking at single figure rates of megabytes a second - less than a megabyte a second in some cases and laptop optical drives can be even worse. A USB flash drive on the other hand can dish out data at tens of megabytes a second - even hundreds with the fastest USB 3 flash drives.
The result is an installation time measured in minutes - not hours. In fact, the installation can take less than 10 minutes from start to finish. This makes much more sense than using an optical drive and a DVD. In fact, with some of the other tools around today such as Ninite, reinstalling Windows and your programs makes recovering from a hard disk failure or virus a much less painful process.
See my article 'How To Reinstall Windows And Your Programs In 20 Minutes' for more tips on using a USB flash drive to install Windows in super-quick times.
This is a brilliant move by Microsoft, and I wish many other software makers that currently distribute their products on DVDs would do this too. Sadly, it's possibly not going to be of benefit to many Windows 10 users as the company is focussing more on dishing Windows 10 out via downloads rather than paper box products. Indeed, it's a shame it didn't do this several operating systems ago.
What do you think of Windows 10 coming on a USB stick? Do you already install your copy via USB? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter - @antonyleather.
