Microsoft streaming OS in the future?

Winrumors:

A recently published U.S. patent has revealed Microsoft’s future plans for a streaming operating system. The patent, entitled “Fast Machine Booting Through Streaming Storage”, details a method of booting a virtual PC operating system through remote storage. The patent covers a variety of devices from laptop devices to set top boxes and minicomputers. ConceivablyTech spotted the patent and note that Microsoft’s idea is based on virtual storage systems. Microsoft suggests that data require to boot up a machine would be pulled from storage and streamed to the device. The data could then be kept in a cache on the local device such as flash storage or RAM. Microsoft describes the method as a technology that facilitates “fast boot because the virtual disk is available for use immediately, rather than needing to download an entire operating system image before booting from that downloaded image.” The company says the service would only need to be available for as long as data is required to boot the device. Microsoft could also implement the technology in a similar way to Apple’s Lion Internet Recovery.

Apple’s latest OS X Lion operating system allows users to start their Mac directly from Apple’s servers. The system runs a test of memory and hard drive components before presenting a limited interface to select a Wi-Fi network and download and start a recovery operating system image. Hard to tell whether this will be a patent for Windows 8 or Windows 9.]]>