there is a fine line between agile and fragile
Microsoft has re-released the previously revoked Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool. This time around, it's GPL licensed with source-code.
The tool has previously been released and subsequently revoked again after Microsoft was made aware that the tool, developed by a third party, included GPL licensed code in the compiled binary.
Personally I'm happy that the tool is available again, and that Microsoft "did the right thing ®" and released it with the proper license.
Yesteday I had to reinstall my home computer due to a botched BIOS flash (don't ask, long story...), and decided that it was time I installed Windows 7 on that computer as well.
Remembering the Microsoft's Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, I went looking for the download only to be met by a 404 (page not found) error when I tried to download it. The whole information/documentation section was still available on the Microsoft Store site, but the downloadable file was missing. No information was given, so I assumed it was a glitch on Microsofts behalf and located an alternative download site (CNet) that still had it available.
The tool did it's job, and I got Windows 7 Enterprise installed from a USB pendrive without any problems at all, just as expected.
Today, however, all information regarding the tool has been removed. All you get now is a "Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found." 404 error when you try to access it's previous location and no explanation is given.
Turns out, Microsoft has indeed pulled the tool from the site. According to Rafael Rivera Jr. this is because he discovered that the Microsoft tool was using code from "CodePlex-hosted (yikes) GPLv2-licensed ImageMaster"
Clearly a breach of the GPL as the Microsoft tool wasn't GPL'ed itself.
Read all the details in Rafael's post "Microsoft lifts GPL code, uses in Microsoft Store tool". I guess that means we are back to using Novicorp WinToFlash again. For more details on WinToFlash, check out my post called "Installing Windows from a USB Stick".
How did this ever slip through Microsofts QA?
On November 13th Microsoft confirmed that their own internal code review of the tool had uncovered that Rafael Riviera Jr. was indeed right. The tool does contain GPL code. The tool was develped for Microsoft by a third party, but still, this could, and should, have been avoided if Microsoft had conducted a proper code review before releasing the tool into the wild.
So, Microsoft now what? Well, it seems like they indend to do the only thing they can do, release the whole tool as GPL licensed:
As a result, we will be making the source code as well as binaries for this tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2 as described here, and are also taking measures to apply what we have learned from this experience for future code reviews we perform.
Read the whole statement from Microsoft: Update on the Windows 7 USB/DVD Tool
I must say that even if this shouldn't have happened, Microsoft did the right thing here. Admitting what happened and took the natural consequences. Well played.
A little while a go I mentioned a great little tool called Novicorp WinToFlash.
Seems like Microsoft figured out that was a great little idea, and in conjunction with todays official Windows 7 release, they've also made the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool available.
Since you can buy Windows 7 and then download the ISO directly from the new online Microsoft Store (Can anyone say Apple?!) it makes sense that they have created their own little tool that enables you to install Windows 7 from an USB stick. The tool makes it easy to copy the ISO to a USB stick, and then use that to boot your computer and install from it. Nothing more, nothing less.
I love utilities like these, you know the ones that do one task and do it well?
One of the most popular posts on this site is the "Installing Debian from a USB Stick" post from October 2008. Seems like it's about time I posted something similar but for Windows installations.
Enter Novicorp WinToFlash. This little piece of software, still in beta, makes the task of transferring your existing Windows install CD or .ISO to a bootable USB device a breeze.
You can transfer Windows XP/Vista/7, Windows Server 2003/2008 and even Win PE installation files directly to a USB device, both spen drives and HDDs, and then use that device to install your computers.
Easy step by step instructions are available, but frankly the software doesn't need much intervention. All I did was to mount a random (in this case Windows 7 RC1) .iso file from my HDD as a virtual drive, plug in my Corsair Flash Voyager 16 GB pen drive and start the WinToFlash software.
I ran through the wizard, specifying the location of the Windows files and the USB drive and off it went:
The installation of Windows 7 from the generated USB pen drive went flawlessly and very quickly. It sure is nice to lug around a USB pen drive rather than DVDs, provided your computer lets you allow from a USB boot device that is...
I'm setting up a new web server for a client of mine, and was supposed to start installing it this evening. After unpacking it I realized that this new HP ProLiant DL 120 came without a cd-rom and thus the Debian ISO netinstall image I had downloaded was useless. Considering I'm doing this install at home, I don't exactly have a PXE server available either
My quest for installation via an USB stick started, but most of the information I found on how to create one was geared towards users that already have Debian or any other Linux distribution already installed. Again, this is being done at my home, which currently is a Linux free zone. I do have a Linux server available, the one that hosts this site amongst other things, but that is located elsewhere.
After fiddling with WinImage a bit, I was still unable to properly create a bootable stick. Everything seemed to go ok, until I actually tried booting it. All I got was a unpleasant "Boot Error" on the server, and no installation love at all. Trying to run RawWrite for Windows on Vista x64 didn't yield any better results, as that doesn't even see the USB stick as a device it can write to at all.
I came very close to giving up creating this on Windows and was ready to do a virtualized Debian install and then try to create the boot device from there, but then I remembered seeing a Windows version of dd somewhere. It turns out that Chrysocome, that also makes RawWrite for Windows, also maintain a port of dd for Windows
As a last ditch attempt before trying a virtualized Debian instance I decided to give it a try, and it turned out to work beautifully!. So, here is my step-by-step guide for creating a bootable USB stick for Debian on Windows
Of course, your target computer or server must be able to boot from a USB device and it's BIOS must be configured to actually try booting from USB. The HP ProLiant DL120 did this out of the box, so I didn't have to configure anything at all.
I'm sure this is pretty common knowledge for a lot of people, but I wasn't able to quickly find a concise description on how to use Windows to create the bootable USB stick so I thought it would be best to record my steps in case it helps someone else. Besides, I can always look at this post again the next time I need to do something like this.