Windows 7 on USB Thumb Drives?

An article on Pc Pro posts that Microsoft is reportedly considering offering Windows 7 on USB thumb drives to allow netbook owners to upgrade their machines.

Windows has, until now, only been distributed on DVDs or via download. However, netbooks don’t come with optical drives and downloading an operating system is a frankly painful experience.

The Windows 7 ISO weighs in at 2.3GB, which would take several hours to download on an average broadband connection and potentially do serious damage to a customer’s broadband data cap.

“Complicating matters further is the fact that most Netbooks are running Windows XP. Those moving from Windows XP can buy an upgrade version of the software, but must back up their data, do a clean installation of the operating system and then reload their applications.

The same goes for all XP owners, as well as users looking to move from a higher-end version of Vista to a lower-end version of Windows 7 and all users in Europe trying to upgrade to Windows 7 using the browser-less “E” version–the only one Microsoft plans to offer there.” says cnet.