I don’t think it is. Booting from a floppy disk is not a thing in Windows 8.1 and installing from that many disks would take days.
Legacy system operations are used to slow processes. So I don’t think it would matter that it would take days.
I agree; I don’t think it’s real. What system is too delicate to install an optical drive and yet you still have the need to install a “new” OS? This kinda assumes that any system that could run Windows 8 can handle an optical drive. I’m kinda hoping to be schooled in some corner case that would warrant this.