Windows 7 Upgrade Could Take Over 20 Hours

20 hours? were they using a floppy?

any "upgrade" is an ugly messy way to get windows installed - dump that *** and format the dam thing and get a decent fresh install onto that system

Certainly 20 hours would be a max? That is, if there are many, many programs, games, files, folders, drivers, registry entries, right? I'm using RC7 now and can only determine that Adobe and RC7 don't get along. The beta's of AV software work ok, other than the expiration dates. DirectX 11 not recognized by many graphics cards, so Dumbdown seems to be the way to go. 20 hours, huh. I've done clean installs, including several programs, games, etc, in no more than 6-7 worst case scenario, never upgraded, so it makes me wonder what MS did to arrive at the scary 20 hour number.

fresh install is the way to go.

I agree.upgrade should never be in consideration with installing a new Op system.Best performance is always from a fresh clean install over upgrade.

Sure upgrade install.
Upgrade with all the viruses/spyware/malware/trojan w/e that's on your old system your virus program didn't detect.

Will do fresh install on new TB-size hard drive.

Will do fresh install on new TB-size hard drive.

So you used statistical outliers to make an intriguing headline for an article of little to no relevance for any of the readers of this website?
Thank you for wasting my time.

Wow... only 20 hours to get a system back to the way it was before? That's amazing. I know that it takes me weeks and I often can NEVER get things back to how I wanted them before. Just getting things like photoshop macros and other programmed settings working again means I have to relearn and redo things that I figured out years ago. I am totally trapped in my OS! Augh!

cybrcatter: The article might be useful to users that don't have the experience or knowledge of doing fresh installs and updating all the drivers. By no means is that a difficult task, but there are plenty who would rather take the 'easy way out' so to speak.

Think of it as retraining. MS is increasing your value to your employer.

I said nothing about fresh installs. I referencing the information about UPGRADES, specifically "Most users will average upgrade times lasting just a few hours"
Meaning that, of the set of users who wish to take the UPGRADE rout, MOST of them will have acceptable install times.

It's like creating a headline along the lines of 'Residents in southern California can experience more than 2 strokes per year!".
It is not an invalid statement-there is in fact a very small percentage of that population that do, but its abusing statistical outliers to make an otherwise nonexistent newsworthy story.

At least its better than something that never installs

*cough* snow job *cough*

lol ^ +1, paying for a service pack, what idiots

I've recently been having troubles with my main PC (vista) with BF2 crashing to desktop and on another computer running XP having blue screens. Well I've formatted and clean installed several times on both. the XP machine ended up having a faulty stick of RAM and the other one was a combo problem with punkbuster and sound driver issue. My point was going to be: I'm a very seasoned pro in the clean install routine but the funny thing is there is always something that goes slightly wrong, something reported by windows (different each time) that something my not have installed correctly, or the anti-virus program (symantec end-point protection) is not correctly reporting status to windows security center etc. I've found lots of inconsistancies with driver updates (which ones are the actual latest ones from manufactures website vs Windows Update) and which order to install, re-read fine print, uninstall, re-install, reboot, run setup to complete. ARGH!! It's not as easy as it's been made out, you really have to take it slow and research before you plunge in and take your time, sometimes the installation instructions don't jive to what you see on screen, sometimes you have to think it through and figure it out yourself.

Example: Realtek HD Audio Codec, released a new Windows certified driver. Then about 4 days later they release a new one. To install it, you run the setup, then you have to reboot. Windows picks up a new driver and says it installed. But it's actually not fully installed, you have to run the setup program a 2nd time before it completes the install and then reboot. It says this in the readme file but I suspect alot of people like me would just assume it was fully installed and drive on only to have problems later.

Tkes like what, half an hour for a fresh install and a half hour to backup all your goodies?

I backed up 200 gigs of goodies and did a fresh install in a few hours, most of the time was just transfering data to old slow drives. =D

I wonder how many have tried to upgrade from Vista to 7
I did an upgrade to Win 7 on my machine and it took about 3 hours. A full install of Vista took about an hour(not including installing drivers) so I think the 20 hours is an extreme case not the norm.

Slow systems will install slow. More news at 11.

I did try the upgrade before during Windows 7 RC test and it didn't take that long. It actually takes me less time to install the Vista to 7 upgrade than to clean install an XP plus updates.

Upgrading from Vista is a better option for me because all the drivers are installed. Clean install is better but not faster.

urmm wow...windows gotten worst on every new release of their os,they've forgotten the terms of "user friendly" seriously for clean installation on windows for several hours? you've got to be kiddin. with mac os x just took 45 minutes for upgrading from leopard to snow leopard and for clean install much more faster with no driver installation need to be done.

Proof that dumb people use macs.

except that your OS never works. it has Full of security problems. and guess what, Apple wont fix it !

and all you paid was nothing but a "service pack". and guess what, Windows gets Service pack for FREE.

Rofl. ever heard of "extreme case"? 20 hours is "Up to", not always, I guess you're too dumb to know the difference between those 2 words. go fuck a goat Mac boy.

btw. Mac dumb boy. it took me about 30 minutes to do a CLEAN INSTALL of Windows 7 RTM. Hmm, yeah. we get better security out of box. Im talking about REAL security, not some fantasy that Jobs gave u dumbasses. LMAO.

Personally, I don't see 20 hours being bad at all. Considering I have about 200 programs and games installed, how long do you think it would take to back up all my media, install ALL of those programs and games, reconfigure all those programs and games, replace media, etc. I bet longer than 20 hours.

And Mac fag, just... just stop talking. The reason yours took 45 minutes is because it was barely doing anything. Windows 7: New OS. Snow Leopard: Service Pack. So yeah.

I think the assumption at the worst case is a 5400 rpm disk. Do yourself a favour and install it on a solid state disk. I mean if your paying ~$100+ for windows then you can afford the extra $100 for the solid state disk.

anyone who would spend 20 hrs installing windows deserves the mac they'ed no doubt run to...

Upgraded Vista Ultimate SP2 to Windows 7 Ultimate and it only took 1 hour and 20 minutes, from DVD insertion to completion and running desktop. Including the upgrade validation program... One, I needed to know how long it would take (in the IT field) and two I recently installed Vista SP2 when I built my large RAID5 volume and wasnt interested in redoing it after only 5 weeks of use. Not to mention all the application reinstallation. No issues encountered at all with upgrade. I mean come on, it is essentially Vista anyways, who are you kidding... XP to Win7 sure, but Vista is so close in design to Win7, I am not worried...

Backup the whole USERS and PROGRAM DATA (or if your using ancient windows xp - DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS) folders to somewhere safe, wipe the system and install fresh - how hard is that? and when you need the software you simple REINSTALL it when needed - i do the same thing between all the pcs im on - need firefox? reinstall it etc - NOT hard.

Its not difficult - your list there would take me well under 2 hours and the benifits - a much cleaner fresher system, more free space, no errors, no issues at all.

If the down time is that bad and that important you should have a decent backup system in place, and even the i would suggest copying all your required items to the backup so when needed you can install it from the backup - i do all my stuff over the network, i copied the office cd contents to my server and install it directly - installs as if it was from a cd but 10x quicker - most other software allows it too.

Also look into microsofts own software and settings transfer wizard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Easy_Transfer) - been around for ages but never touched it my self.

Theres a better way...
1 - Don't INSTALL everything to C: drive. A thing called Partitions is a life saver. If I want/need to do a "clean" OS install, I just copy what few settings folders and "my docs"(minor) to another partition. and wipe C: drive. Things like games, content are NOT on C: drive. And when de-fragging, it speeds things up!

2 - Win7(ultimate) installs in about 15~20 mins. Photoshop about 5mins, MS-Office2007 Pro = 3-6 mins. Most games can be installed anywhere (like any software)... and save the REG keys. DL content for games SHOULD be in the game folder... otherwise, typical sloppy programming.

3 - Yes... installing a NEW OS on a system with a history will never be quick. But I've done emg rebuilds in 3-4 hours (backup, re-install, etc)

Learn the habit of having a 30~50GB C: (OS + APP).
OS7 typically eats about 5~7GB of space. After driver installs, compressed into a backup file, its about 2-3GB. Then install your Major Apps... then updates... a typical *TYPICAL* user may max out around 8~12GB of OS & Apps.

Then use the FREE backup mirror software Reflex to make an IMAGE of your C: drive and put the file on an external USB HDD drive / whatever.

If your OS gets hosed or drive failure... boot with the restore CD (to read the USB drive) and restore the drive to its original state. Very very fast. Restored a 4GB C: partition perfectly in about 5mins.

"First of all, the core software changes to go from Vista to 7 aren't as drastic as previous generations of Windows."
Great discovery! Are there any?
"Interestingly, the time it took for Windows 7 to upgrade from Windows Vista SP1 outpaced that of a Vista SP1 to Vista SP1 upgrade procedure."
Seriously? I guess it should be vi$hta -> sp1.
Obviously there is no difference compared with sp1 -> sp2, as it's mostly the same with sp1 -> $even (aka sp2+lipstick).
"At its very worst the upgrade from Windows Vista to 7 was found to take a whopping 20 hours."
Evidently, with the notably exception of complete failure...

Sometimes, I'm just wondering what yummy boy is getting it's paycheck for...