If this is true, it is great news. Would make reinstalling on tablets much easier and it would remove the need for a disc drive for a number of PCs and laptops. I know that mine has become useless in the past year or two and I don't even have one for my laptop anymore.

Good idea but why so expensive - $24 for a pen drive seems pretty steep to me… You can get a decent 16Gb drive for <£5.

It's probably a USB 2.0 drive too, to add insult to injury.

USB 3 would be better :-)

About time just a shame that they feel the need to con consumers with the extra $$$ over the other versions when flash drives are so cheap. Still its one small step to ridding the world of cr*ppy discs !

Readers will note that the flash drive package is priced higher than the digitally distributed and DVD distributed Windows 10. Microsoft confirmed prices of Windows 10 Home $119, and Windows 10 Pro, $199, at the beginning of this month. The USB flash drive version of Windows 10 Home costs $144.23, so you would be in effect paying around $24 extra for the physical flash drive version. Windows 10 Pro on flash drive is about $38 more expensive than the digital/boxed DVD versions for some reason.

Pricing seems a bit strange, I would have expected a small premium for moving from optical to flash, but the price hike in this case seems a bit on the large side.

Getting away from the financial side, I can't help thinking that it'd be pretty good if Microsoft could issue a tool to update the USB install kit with patches etc. So if you come to do a rebuild next year then you're not going to be looking at downloading 12 months of patches to bring it up to speed.

tonyd223
USB 3 would be better :-)

I have used both usb2 and super fast usb3 pen drives installing to fast ssd's and it is not huge difference in the actual bit that the usb drive is inserted for it to install, it is just fast either way, might save you a few to maybe 30 seconds on install time.

Get the cheaper dvd version and then just make a usb install out of it, right? That's what I did with 7.

I know this is unrelated, but I have one thing I really want to clear up about W10. Is it machine locked like W8, even when you buy a retail licence, or are you free to move it around and upgrade your computer? Cheers.

cheesemp
Good idea but why so expensive - $24 for a pen drive seems pretty steep to me… You can get a decent 16Gb drive for <£5.

New ways to monetise Windows. Just imagine how much buying power they have too.

ZaO
I know this is unrelated, but I have one thing I really want to clear up about W10. Is it machine locked like W8, even when you buy a retail licence, or are you free to move it around and upgrade your computer? Cheers.

I'm sure that this is something that our esteemed colleague GuidoLS covered and yes, you were free to upgrade your Win10 box, and only ran into problems if you tried to do a lift-&-shift (where you change cpu, mobo, RAM, and disk). Not sure where the machine-locked idea from Windows8 came from since I've seen a lot of talk that you can just reauthenticate the new install, which apparently is a simple operation if you managed to deactivate the old machine first.

Not sure if it's helpful, but have a look at this thread: How do you transfer Windows 8 licence to a new machine. Now what I'm thinking (based on that and other similar threads) is that if you use the “free” W10 upgrade then you'll have to install W7/8 on your new machine first and then the W10 upgrade. On the other hand, if you've splurged for a fresh retail pack then it should be easy.

crossy
I'm sure that this is something that our esteemed colleague GuidoLS covered and yes, you were free to upgrade your Win10 box, and only ran into problems if you tried to do a lift-&-shift (where you change cpu, mobo, RAM, and disk). Not sure where the machine-locked idea from Windows8 came from since I've seen a lot of talk that you can just reauthenticate the new install, which apparently is a simple operation if you managed to deactivate the old machine first.

Not sure if it's helpful, but have a look at this thread: How do you transfer Windows 8 licence to a new machine. Now what I'm thinking (based on that and other similar threads) is that if you use the “free” W10 upgrade then you'll have to install W7/8 on your new machine first and then the W10 upgrade. On the other hand, if you've splurged for a fresh retail pack then it should be easy.

W8 installs were locked by the BIOS on the motherboard. But, I'm not sure if that was only the OEM versions..

I have a feeling this issue was covered on here before. But, my memory isn't always so great so I forget what/if I read and where I read it. I'll have a read through that linked thread though.. Thanks :)

Their source is a tech blogger, and MS DE told them they had no information. USB stick? Maybe. It's a good idea, and other than a couple of the larger Linux distros, nobody else is doing it, consumer or business. Pricing? Wait until they're offered - these guys are pulling numbers out of the ether.

Or better yet - buy your choice of USB stick, and waste whatever time it takes for you to d/l ~3gb and install it to the pen yourself.

crossy
Pricing seems a bit strange, I would have expected a small premium for moving from optical to flash, but the price hike in this case seems a bit on the large side.

Getting away from the financial side, I can't help thinking that it'd be pretty good if Microsoft could issue a tool to update the USB install kit with patches etc. So if you come to do a rebuild next year then you're not going to be looking at downloading 12 months of patches to bring it up to speed.

Not sure how confident I would be in having any software altered by a diff file on a USB stick, especially with the typically (much) slower write speeds. Power blip, and it's all gone. It would be a neat piece of programming, though.

They should make USB type C USB's. For the near future, so it'll work on PC's and smartphones/tablets.

I'll get my copy from MSDN thank you.

I think this has come around at a good time, perhaps a little overdue actually, since most motherboards seem to support this now. That said the price premium is indeed odd, so I'll be sticking to making my own bootable USBs via Rufus thanks.

With USB installation, the win 10 licensing could also be stored within the memory stick requiring it to be permanently plugged in. :eek:

theleader
With USB installation, the win 10 licensing could also be stored within the memory stick requiring it to be permanently plugged in. :eek:

Doubt Microsoft would ever do that for Laptop's sake, those things have few enough ports as is.

As an option it is a welcome one, and way overdue but that price hike does seem steep.

WTB payment plans to pay for OSes. Some of us can't afford to shell out $144 to $238 all at once just for the backbone that allows us to be creative and play games and so on with pcs. Seriously can we get 6 month to 12 month payment plans and no don't charge people more for buying it that way.