You can help make longhorn better!

Have any of you considered sending an email to [email protected] ?

While it's fine and dandy that members are coming together to express their dislike for using a floppy, but I should think you'd stand a better chance of making your wishes known by sending your comments directly to Microsoft.
 
yes, PLEASE implement something

I no longer build any machines with floppies unless specifically needed. I try to stay away from floppies as much as possible. In fact I haven't had to use one in several months now. As time goes on floppies will be disappearing more and more. With longhorn not due out some time to come, floppys will be going away more and more during this time.. plus not to mention the 5yrs that operating system will be used. By then I honestly don't see ANYONE having a floppy drive anymore. Other than, perhaps, JUST to install drivers during windows installation :rolleyes:

I mean, we're at a time now that a good percentage of computers don't come with floppies and you need to request one be added. At least, that's been the case with most all our Dell company orders.
 
I think the floppy drive is dead too. I don't have a single friend that has put one on a new rig.
 
TheRapture said:
THE FLOPPY IS DEAD....it is an archaic design and a POS. I have not had a floppy drive in my rigs for 2 years now, I have a custom CD made for BIOS flashing...but it sure sucks when I need to load some silly little SATA or RAID drivers during an install...
Click to expand...

I still have a 5.25/3.5 combo drive sitting here that is going into my next box.
 
i agree that floppy drives cannot be the only medium of adding drivers during an OS installation. hiding behind the limitation of the hardware no longer applies, and this implementation should be a significant mark of long overdue improvement on the microsoft OS suite.
 
I can agree with this. I have absolutly no use for a floppy EXCEPT for when I installed XP. I wasn't gonna spend the extra money (however little it might be) for something I had no use for. I ended up bumming one off of a guy in my dorm...

Lets go for the CD/USB driver install!
 
SJConsultant said:
Have any of you considered sending an email to [email protected] ?
Click to expand...
Althought I honestly don't think it will matter I fired off an e-mail to it about this and I included al ink to this thread. If anyone does actually read it then at least it will be known. I encourge others to do this too. Can't hurt right?

Hey whats the all this microsoft product information in my inbox!? :confused: :confused: :confused: j/k :D
 
Add my vote. It's a pain to open up my computer and dangle a floppy drive just to install windows. Hopefully they will do something about this.
 
Ranma_Sao said:
And it was a non issue if someone actually read the slides I posted.
Click to expand...

That presentation is aimed at corporate deployment and manufacturing and not the end user/retail version of Longhorn...

Do you have another powerpoint presentation detailing the retail version of the install process?
 
kraemer007 said:
That presentation is aimed at corporate deployment and manufacturing and not the end user/retail version of Longhorn...

Do you have another powerpoint presentation detailing the retail version of the install process?
Click to expand...
The processes are the same. The Consumer setup experiance is a subset of the full deployment.
 
It would be nice to see the floppy go the way of the DoDo (with respect to past DoDo), and it would be much more convenient to have alternative media to install necessary drivers. I personally do not use the floppy drive in my main computer anymore, mainly due to me slipstreaming the XPSP1 CD to XPSP2 and all the necessary drivers needed.

If LongHorn supports alternative media for installing necessary drivers, or allows for slipstreaming drivers into it, then I am all for it. :)
 
I am all for CD/DVD and especially USB driver installation. The only reason people keep floppy drives at all is to install drivers. Most file transfers for school or work is either done via CD, USB, or email anyway.
 
if they require me to hook up a damn floppy to load drivers again I am gonna scream. Many systems come without a floppy...especially if I build them.
 
don't do it! kill the floppy once and for all... if you do this it will be just another thing that will be on low end budget systems and will up the price. besides... wouldn't you want tell businesses you're giong to want to sell longhorn to that its much easier to install than ever before and will save them time? every PR gymic is worth it.
 
I think, for the advancement of a state of the art OS... it would be necessary to load drivers from another source other than floppy drives. Microsoft should stop debating this, and advance forward and include CDROM/USB Drive support to the install process.

sure, text mode becomes a little more complex, but in the end, it will be worth it.


regardless, im sure it can be implimented much like we do these days with nlite and other proggies.
 
there is no reason to have a floppy now other than this bs F6 option for installing drivers

If MS did this it might Restore SOME of the faith I have lost in them over the years
 
I don't install floppy drives into custom computers anymore because nobody I build them for has a desire for them. I prefer not to use them as well since they're so slow.

I'd love to be able to do everything I need to install the OS, without the use of a floppy drive.
 
I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before, but win98 had an option to load drivers off of the CD. It came as a suprise when XP didn't have that option. I'm all for the thumb drive option, or at the very least, the ubiquitous CD-R
 
krenshin said:
I'm not sure if it has been mentioned before, but win98 had an option to load drivers off of the CD. It came as a suprise when XP didn't have that option. I'm all for the thumb drive option, or at the very least, the ubiquitous CD-R
Click to expand...
The reason is due entirely to architecture. NT does not support Dos Access, it requires a driver to see the disk. (NT doesn't trust the bios control routines) Win9x had no problem using the Bios routines to access the disk. So suffice it to say, that's why NT required a floppy to be able to "see" the controllers. It had to use a bios device it could see, and that the loader can see. Floppy controllers are pretty standard devices. ;) But if you threw a floppy behind a controller XP can't see, you wouldn't be able to use that floppy either. (A lot of the early USB floppies don't work for this reason) As the slides say, technology has advanced that it is now possible and is the Plan of Record to support these other devices.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Put me down for the USB thumb drive option. In reality, it should just seek floppy, then try additional cd/dvd rom drives if present, then seek USB storage. Heck if MS would make slipstreaming drivers a less painful process we wouldn't need to worry about it at all. Still the option to seek USB and/or CD should have been implemented back when win 2k launched.
 
i know this is a lame excuse, but the reason i don't use sata or raid is because i don't have a floppy to install the drivers. That and i hate having to deal with floppy crap anyway :D
 
Here's my vote for USB pendrive or CD/DVD based driver install. Floppy drives are no longer included with PCs. Many makers don't even offer them as options anymore. It's time the install process was updated to use technology that's already in place, not technology that's been discontinued.
 
I definately think that storage drivers should be able to load from anything.
Microsoft is dropping other legacy software support with longhorn and other legacy devices. Yet to install you need a legacy media format? Yeah that makes sense. If the company is full of lazy programmers who don't want to rewrite the install routine.

Get rid of the damn floppy, I don't even have one anymore and haven't bothered for 3 years now and would like an os drive to be raided now thank you very much Microsoft.
 
I ditched floppy drives altogether in machines I built (unless requested) 2 years ago, and I know many others are doing exactly the same. So put me down for a CD/DVD loading option first and foremost, followed closely behind by USB thumb drive.
 
As I build more and more PCs that use SATA drives the drivers on floppy is pretty lame. You should be able to point it to a USB drive or CD/DVD ROM with drivers on it.

No more floppy......
 
/Tosses his fuel to the fire

I agree. Load it by any other means. How many people honestly have a floppy still installed.
 
I hope MS will do its part to see that floppies disappear.

The best scenario would be to replace the BIOS / initial boot with a new small GUI based OS installed on flash memory on the motherboard. This TinyOS would be responsible for the POST, recognizing all the hardware and then load a small GUI interface. From there you could:
  • install an OS
  • choose a boot device (easy multiple OSes on the same machine)
  • manage the hw (replaces the old BIOS screens)
A small group of people could keep the TinyOS up to date for new hardware and since it is installed on flash it could be easily updated on old computers. :eek:
 
Please leave it as it is!!! I love my floppy drive!!!

Not.

Floppy must die.

Or bring back 5.25 drives and make Longhorn a truly "retro" OS. Maybe get back to 16 colors...
 
It would be about time they add this. I still have a floppy drive tucked somewhere *** for that reason only *** !!!!
 
I agree Longhorn should address the Floppy "issue". It's a legacy hardware that should be done away with. Or at least have the option TO do away with. After all, OEMs won't kill it right away, it'll have to be phased out. Until then though give us freelancers a choice! :D
 
S1nF1xx said:
How about the ability to format a thumb drive to be bootable by right-click and format? That would be pretty cool.
Click to expand...


dear god YES :D
 
My god this is the best thread ever. Words cannot describe how much I hate the floppy in the installation process. I mean...setup is reading files off the cd during that time!! Why can't it read drivers off a different cd?! I don't have a floppy in any of my computers but I have one around here JUST for this purpose. (only one of my boxes runs windows lol...but that's not the point) Give us the option of a cd...or a usb drive...hell, or even like a network drive or SOMETHING. Anything besides that damn floppy. (that always seems to go corrupt on me)

Microsoft, take a hint from linux, especially the Gentoo LiveCD. It gives you that beautiful environment to load modules from ANY available source (including network sources, if the network card works, cd's in other drives, hard drives that are detected, usb devices, etc.) to make your other devices work. I could even FTP in the stuff from another computer if I wanted to. it's beautiful. Please Microsoft...or else I'll switch my last windows based box to linux, and be done with you for good.
 
I vote ditch the floppy. I'd be happy with either USB or CD driver install possibilities.
 
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