If you’re thinking of upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 later this fall, set aside some time – especially if you’ve got a lower-end machine with a bunch of applications already installed and a hard drive full of files. One of Microsoft’s own engineers clocked in a 1220-minute upgrade time on just such a machine.
The scenario: A 32-bit Vista to 32-bit Windows 7 upgrade on a rig outfitted with an AMD 64 X2 dual-core 5200+ CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 1TB Western Digital hard drive spinning at 7,200RPM. That’s what was considered “Mid Range Hardware,” meaning my own trusty, dusty AMD 64 X2 dual-core 4000+ desktop is just about ready for retirement.
The “Super User” scenario under which the tests were run includes 650GB worth of data, 40 applications installed, modified OS settings, and 15 optional components installed. The test wasn’t even run with the same simulated user settings on the “Low End Hardware,” which consisted of an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU and 1GB of RAM.
Windows 7 Upgrade Performance [TechNet Blogs via Ars Technica]
aaaaaaaah, oh wait I use apple. Okay i’m safe, that is some scary news.
cool, but i love mac better
get your facts straight. It takes less than 1 hour to install windows 7, how on earth did you ever get hired writing about technology?
Conduct your own independent test rather than spread ignorance…
Maybe _you_ should start reading. This way you might find out this article is all about upgrades. And yes, they take quite some time. My notebook took over 3 hours to upgrade to the Windows 7 Beta.
It DOES NOT TAKE 20+ hours.. Maybe _you_ haven’t realized that I’ve been testing Win 7 for months, installing on a wide variety of systems and it has never (not even when upgrading from Vista on either 32 or 64 bit flavors) taken more than 1 hour.
SO AGAIN, PLEASE, STOP SPREADING IGNORANCE AND PLEASE FACT CHECK YOUR SOURCES.
The source is a Microsoft employee working on the Windows Deployment team (he might even work on the same floor as you).
http://blogs.technet.com/chris_hernandez/archive/2009/09/02/windows-7-upgrade-performance.aspx
I’ve personally done several Windows 7 clean installs in well under an hour and several Vista to Windows 7 upgrades, all of which have taken over an hour.
If you check the source article yourself, you’ll see that the Microsoft employee who wrote it was only able to complete an upgrade in under an hour using a clean Vista system with no additional software installed. Every other scenario took at least 85 minutes.
THANK YOU FOR READING CRUNCHGEAR.
JJi is a troll right? right?
Hooker line sinker
JJI – This is for a WIN7 UPGRADE, NOT AN INSTALL MORON. Upgrade ports all files and system settings from Vista to Win 7. Installation I’m sure does take an hour.
SO AGAIN, PLEASE, STOP SPREADING IGNORANCE AND PLEASE FACT CHECK YOUR SOURCES.
JJI, you need to do a little more research. I just bought a new desk top for my son 3 months ago for school, one of the perks, free upgrade to Windows 7. I started the upgrade yesterday at 7:30pm and it is only 74% complete on th “gathering file” stage. I honestly think I will still be waiting come this weekend.
Oh, and I ran all the compatiblity checks and updates prior to ensure a “smooth” install.
Hey Buddy, I don’t know why you’re so sure of yourself. I found your comment because I got on my laptop to search the web to find out why my Windows 7 upgrade has now entered it’s 23rd hour. It has been stuck at 62% for the last five hours.
Why you are such an ass I don’t know. But for the record my windows 7 upgrade is embarassingly slow. So, I think you should apologize to the guy your ranking on.
Peace.
John,
Where do you get the idea that telling me what to do is in your best interest?
Ist – I am not your buddy.
2nd – you call me an ass and expect me to apologize to someone you don’t even know.
Perhaps if you were a part of this converstation before you butted in you would see that he has no justification for what he said in this column.
the Windows 7 62% ugrade error is actually a well known issue and I don’t appreciate you talking to me about it as you obviously don’t know shit. Good Luck with your upgrade.
(you have to prep your computer before the upgrade and this consists of executing a specific command in your prompt)
so you want an apology? I am sorry you are incompitent with computers and feel like you have to post shit on our forums. Just do us all a favor and just unplug your machine and go back to using a pen and paper….
maybe while you are at it, you can apologize to your mother for wasting her genes and the life that she wanted to give a child.
You did a great job reading the article jack ass. He is explaining how an UPGRADE with more than 40 seperate programs, 600+ GB of data and Customized windows settings took more than 20+ hours.
..and you know what mr. tester. I did the same upgrade from Vista 64 to Windows 7 64 and it took 19 hours…
Why don’t you actually try testing a product fully.. instead of spreading your hatred around our tech sites… jack ass.
Go get a MCSE cert or something and learn your craft a bit better.
I am in the process of upgrading a Dell Laptop from Vista to Windows 7, it has bee updating for 17 hyours and for the last 5 hours it has shown 62% complete.
Does one wiat or what?
I have data and add-ins to Excel I simply must have.
I let the system run for 25 hours and it never moved/updated beyond the 62%. I shut down the PC and it rebooted and returned me to Vista.
So Windows 7 remains in my distance future.
wow glad i went with mac in july
What does that mean?
The Snow Leopard upgrade process often takes longer.
The 20+ hour test is a completely unreasonable anomoly. Upgrades take an hour or two.
Fresh installs go much faster. Really, who would want to upgrade Vista to 7? That’s just asking for problems. I just installed Windows 7 Ultimate RC1 on a Foxconn Barebones PC SFF R10-S2 with an Intel Atom 230 64bit @ 1.6 GHz. This install took under 1 hour.
Another Blogger… I bet that’s subject to tons of peer review…
I’m blown away by the accuracy and truthfulness of your sources.
One blogger is all you can come up with?
If what you say is true, then why has it not been true for me?
This article starts by showing an old dusty looking PC. Moreover, the headline says “Windows 7 upgrade time tops out at 20+ hours.” Thus, from the beginning the author is demonstrating his bias against Win7; this is my particular beef with the article. It is deceptive and a source of misinformation for the masses. People need to be informed, and not misinformed with information that hangs in the outer spectrums of truth. Ultimately, that fringe area is just 2% true and 98% false.
I concede that it is possible for the upgrade to take longer than 1 hour, but I do not concede that it will always take longer than 1 hour. That is how I arrived at my conclusion that this article is biased, because it only shows one far reaching end of the spectrum of truth, rather than a true representation of all possible outcomes during an upgrade.
Moreover, the same holds true for apple products. There will always be some sort of variance with respect to install times of operating systems; varying hardware and performance from system to system, installation media, etc. all have an impact.
JJi, if you’ve been reading Crunchgear for a while, you might recognize this is one of the few authors who doesn’t display a bias toward Apple products. The blog post was taken directly from a reliable source – someone who works at Microsoft. Would you prefer the title read something like “butterflies make me happy” or “Yay Football!”? Sometimes, a good title gets right to the point. The subject matter was reliably sourced. And the post contained *zero* Apple mentions – you read into that bias on your own.
You do not concede an upgrade from Vista to 7 “will always take longer than 1 hour”. OK, that’s fine. Please reference where that was stated in the post.
I personally use Vista and *love* it. I really do. I think its fantastic. That doesn’t mean I don’t recognize that upgrading from Vista to 7 will take a lot longer than just installing 7 from scratch. That’s usually just how it goes, which you know yourself. With 650 GB of data, I have no trouble believing it took as long as it did. I’m actually impressed (and somewhat surprised) the upgrade completed at all, given all that data. This story could also be taken as a testament to a well designed upgrade process that doesn’t hang after twenty hours.
I own a computer repair firm. my client’s machine is in its 18.5th hour with a phenom x4 9750, 8GB ddr2, 1TB hdd and only 120GB used. While I understand the complexity of the process, my client is seriously questioning my process and honesty.
JJi, you know how the North Koreans were forced at gun point to cry at the funeral of Kim Il-sung because he was president of the country? You know how in George Orwell’s 1984 they erased all evidence of government mistakes by rewriting past news articles?
That’s your job at Microsoft.
I did a clean install yesterday on an Athlon X2 7850. From sticking in the disk to the final Welcome screen took less than 20 minutes.
No suprises…it is ridiculous Winows….so its built for slowness….Get a mac….always good….more advanced then windows,,may be 3 years ahed of windows…may be I’m wrong…5 years
Just being pedantic here, but that comment ‘more advanced then windows’ is complete nonsense if you read it closely. I assume you meant to write ‘more advanced THAN windows’.
Just for the record: I’m in way trying to suggest that a mac is better than windows. A bad comparison anyway, as I think you’d have to be comparing OSX to windows, or a mac to pc.
So why do upgrades usually take longer on a Mac? Why is Snow Leopard just now introducing features like thread pools that have been in Windows for a decade now?
Disconcerting that someone should jump in, feathers flying, and accuse the writer of ’spreading ignorance’. A shame they didn’t read far enough to see the source of the article is MS themselves. I saw the article earlier this week. They (MS) even included a table to give users a guide for upgrade times, and yes it did show 21 hours for a ’superuser’ on a ‘midrange’ system. But anyone in that situation shouldn’t be contemplating an upgrade anyway, but rather a clean install.
A shame to see that anything below an Athlon X2 5200+ is now considered low-end.
My conclusion is based on my own independent research and test runs in my own lab. I simply cannot, for the most part, agree with the writer or his source.
Your conclusion assumes that anything from the perspective of an MS Developer is always true; as if it were the word of a supreme being.
I submit to you that there is more than meets the eye to information released by MS or any other corporation.
I have a passion for technology, and I don’t like to see corporate “spin” from a supposedly independent source influence people based on information that is probably premature at best.
Moreover, my arguments and criticisms are derived from my own independent research which tells a different story.
Until you offer us some proof instead of spouting anecdotal “evidence” and insults, you’re just another troll.
*A delusional troll
I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 Beta 1. It took me less than 1 hour.
Alex,
If my discussion, conclusions, criticisms, and ideas are insulting to you, then I apologize. My intention is only to challenge what I don’t agree with.
Respectfully,
JJi
Blah blah blah, get a mac, blah blah blah. Sheesh, move on fellas. I’m guessing few mac users are going to switch to Win7 so save your breath for constructive criticism of the story/product instead of trying to convince us Wintards that we should switch…we aren’t going to. :) Macs are sure are purdy though.
RE: “My conclusion is based on my own independent research and test runs in my own lab. I simply cannot, for the most part, agree with the writer or his source….”
=====================
MSFT tested Windows 7 on the widest of possible system configurations in order to represent the experiences that which a PC user may possibly encounter. Yes, 20 hours is correct FOR THOSE THAT HAVE THAT CONFIGURATION as shown in the MSFT chart.
Those with the latest and greatest hardware will have the Windows 7 upgrade go faster and easier. Those with antique hardware will have the upgrade take longer AND it will be very disconcerting.
I installed Windows 7 from a 4gb flash drive onto my MSI Wind. Took 15 minutes (clean format and install). Previously backed up all my files (about 100gb worth) which took about an hour. Tweaking the settings, re-installing some programs and drivers – about another hour.
Big deal. Its a very functional, brand new OS. If that’s too much time for you to spend, you’ve got a problem (ADD?)
That’s what we call progress.
I won’t trust my dirty pants to Microsoft. Upgrade my a$$
Window’s just getting worse and worse every release…
Blah Blah Blah. You Mac users can go on and on, but the only thing Apple can really outdo sales on is small gadgets like iPhone and iPod. And, that’s really more in the marketing than in the technology.
You just said it! Everything Apple is all marketing, no substance. Look at the pretty icons, look at its sterility, that’s all they have on the competition. Yes they are generally well designed, but come on – the iPhone has got to be the only phone in the world where users can’t change the battery themselves. Most people know when they’re being robbed in broad daylight. I guess the smug clouds things up a little for maclovers ;)
Yawn. Windows and microsoft are OVER. The people are fed up. LINUX, OPEN SOURCE, and even Mac. Bye bye Microsoft. We have taken your abuse far too long already, and you’re past due for an ‘adjustment.’
So how long does it take to upgrade to Snow Leopard with 640 GB of application data on a similar system? The reason for the 20 hour updrade was the 640 GB of data transfer on a system that can’t handle it. It has nothing to do with the upgrade. The Vista reinstall actually took longer.
Vertigo,
I am glad you cleared that up.
Thank you
People need to cut the vista cord and do a fresh install. Vista was a mistake and Microsoft is making you pay them to fix it.
I work with both PCs and Macs. One thing you never want to do on both platforms is UPGRADE. Always to a clean install, and for all the Microsoft haters, I had a hell of a time with printer drivers when 10.5 first came out. I really hate that Apple will not provide trial licenses for server. I would really like to learn it, but really don’t want to drop $500 on each version that comes out.
An upgrade to Windows 7 actually is an image-basd clean install plus a migration step. The migration can take a while, but only if you have tons of application configuration that needs to applied o the new OS (i.e. 650GB in the AppData directory, which nobody has).
Seriously, who would upgrade? The only way to end up with a well-running system is to do a fresh format and install.
And clearly it took so long in this case because it was re-copying 640gb on an underpowered system.
Man I gotta stop reading crunchgear, their bias to Apple is sickening!
The topic is %100 pure, corn-fed flame bait.
REEEEEEEEEEEAD the article, guys.
RTMFA.
Total nonsense.I’ll be up and running in an hour or less.
mm,quiet interesting and scary………
I’ve done multiple clean installs on Win7, all in < 1 hour. Who the hell upgrades anyway?
Probably people who don’t think they have the tech know how to do a fresh install. Some people might think it would be the easier option because it is supposed to save all your settings. Not everybody who undertakes installing Win7 is a geek. I fully admit to being a geek but after years of experience in the geek industry I know my users.
What man has a name like Jamie… go back to your cert class and actually pay attention when they talk about the purpose for an upgrade.
I took my 2-yr-old PC which was running Vista and upgraded to build 7100. It took 2 hours and 20 minutes but everything worked absolutely perfectly after. I’m running a variety of apps including Office 2007, Adobe Creative Suite CS4 ME, and a bunch of miscellanous programs from twitter apps to phanfare clients.
I had increased performance boost and it was easy.
I then did a separate partition clean install which took 20 minutes.
They say it’s better to do a clean install, but the upgrade was quicker because I didn’t have to reinstall apps. This was on a production machine and my down time was exactly 2 hours 20 minutes.
I am on my third hour, vista business sp2 to windows 7 ultimate upgrade. Core 2 duo, 40gb data, 2gb ram. At this pace it’ll take all night.
Has anyone tried upgrading from Vista 32-bits
to 7 64-bits? I want to know if this is feasible without reinstalling programs.
Andrew – Upgrading from vista 32 to win7 64 needs a custom clean install, new drivers and new software. stick to 32 until 64 hardware and software become more available. I am upgrading from vista sp2 to win7 ultimate, been going for about 2 hours so far. around 100gb data on drive. im just too lazy to burn 25 dvds or copy my data to another storage device.
Thanks, I did a clean install yesterday without a hitch, had all I wanted backed up which made things simpler! Have gone to 64 bits as I have some number crunching style software that will go a lot faster :-)
Andrew
explorer.exe in my vista crashes when copying large files :(
I have an I7 machine with 4 cores and 12 GB a ram. A very fast machine.
I have a few external drives plugged in so about 5 TB of files and a lot of applications. I think it is scanning each file which will take forever.
It has been upgrading for 7 hours so far. I am not sure if I should reboot it or not. I wish I unplugged the external drives as maybe that is slowing it down.
Reading that it may take 20+ hours, I guess I will leave it running for a few days.
It just has a spinning icon and is not saying what it is doing, which is not reassuring.
Jesus, I hope you didn’t leave your external hard drives running during an OS upgrade. If they’re just plugged in (but not running), you should be OK. Otherwise, I would be worried about the data on those drives.
I left it hooked up. I did not think the upgrade would look at non-system drives. The upgrade advisor said I should deauthorize itunes. It said I should remove my anti-virus. It did not say “I see you have a 4 TB external drive. If you unhook it the upgrade will go 40 hours faster.”
I powered off the computer and rebooted. It came up with a rollback and Vista was fine.
I ran upgrade adviser standalone version, and it said “You need 19 GB free. You only have 18 GB free.”
That is odd, because the upgrade itself’s built in adviser thought I had enough free disk.
It seems like it was stuck from not having enough free disk. I am freeing another 8 GB and will try again.
So yes, it seemed stuck as my notebook got past that part right away.
It worked this time. About 2-3 hours, as an upgrade. I have too many applications to want to do a clean install. And the upgrade went well once I had a few GB more disk free than it claimed I needed.
Upgrade from Vista to 7 took me about 4 hours. I have CS3 and CS4, Office 2007 and a bunch of work-related files on my laptop.
Was a bit peeved it took so long, but seems to be working as advertised and my machine which handled Vista with ease is positively screaming.
At 11am today, 12 hours into an upgrade from VISTA to Windows 7 that I started last night before I went to bed. On a MacBook Pro running VISTA from within VMWare Fusion. One processor and 2GB of memory allocated to VMWare Fusion for my VISTA environment.
The upgrade screen says “Transferring Files, Settings, and Programs”, which it has been at since 6:30am this morning when I woke up. Is there any way to tell if the upgrade is still doing something? Is my upgrade just locked up and I will have to kill it eventually anyway? Never, ever expected the upgrade would take 12+ hours.
Any guidance or similar experience out there? Should I just accept that I will have to blow away my existing VISTA installation, start from scratch, and waste a couple of days reinstalling all my applications?
Have to say that the upgrade to Snow Leopard from Leopard took less than 20 minutes…..
I would love to do a clean install on my hp touchscreen but I’m fearful that the touchscreen software will be lost. I upgraded the OS as soon as I purchased it from Vista home premium to ultimate and lost the touchscreen software. Has anyone tried a clean install on the touchscreen?
Brew
Finally shut down the Windows 7 upgrade process after 16 hours – had no indication of when it might ever finish. The progress bar was stopped at the same place for 10 of the 16 hours. Fortunately the VISTA fallback recovery process worked. Restarted VISTA in VMWare Fusion, and the Windows 7 upgrade failure process did get me back to my original VISTA installation within about 20 minutes.
Have no idea what the Windows 7 upgrade process could have been doing for 16 hours, or if it would have ever completed. But certainly I am not going to attempt to upgrade to Windows 7 at any time in the near future.
Well, I have been trying to upgrade 32-bit Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate all weekend long. After complying with the Microsoft recommendations on compatibility, I started the update. After waiting 19 hours, I killed the update and rebooted back to Vista. Read some articles and tried setting the environment variable from Microsoft’s KB. Retried and the install hung after about 1.5 hours. Tried disconnecting all peripherals and using Registry Mechanic to clean the registry. Retried again. Still it is hung during the “Transferring files, setting and programs”.
I have checked all the log files and information after rebooting back to Vista, but no indication whatsoever about why it is locking up. The screen is frozen, no mouse, no keyboard, no disk activity. I have to power cycle the system and reboot which causes Vista to be restored on the system.
I’m at a total loss of what to try next — short of a fresh install. I have installed Windows 7 fresh using beta, RC and RTM. That works great, but I have yet to complete an upgrade of Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate.
I am currently at 48 hours and the upgrade process reports 87% done. It has now been at the same file for 12 hours or so, but something like that happened before on the first day.
Sigh. If I do a fresh install, I will have to install 50+ programms (mostly games) again, enter obnoxious key codes, hunt down patches for older games, restore save game where possible… Thank $deity_of_choice I do my productive work on Ubuntu, where an upgrade takes only 2 hours.
And its reasons like this that I became a proud Mac user – made the switch, and love it! Microsoft just can’t get it right! Oh, well, its clear who the superior company is *mac*! :D
Joseph,
This is not a debate on Mac .vs. Windows, so your comments are irrelevant.
Everyone else,
I found my problem and now understand some of the issues. I was running AnyDVD and PowerISO which provide virtual disk drivers for their applications. These drivers were causing the confusion and hang during the upgrade. While I agree that Microsoft could provide better diagnostics and information about the upgrade process, I was able to diagnose the problem. Once those applications were uninstalled, my upgrade completed in under 3 hours and I have found no issues with it. I am a happy Windows 7 user at home and the office.
ive just updated from windows vista ultimate 64-bit to windows 7 ultimate 64-bit i have 3.2 TB of files and 198 programs installed. 2.8Ghz AMD phemon II x4 920 running @ 3.1Ghz, 8GB of ram and it upgraded with in 6 hours 38 mins. no problems at all :)
What is the point of getting mad over the net. You all are sooooooooooooooooo tupid go get some pussy or jack off of something. Fuck’n idiots.
I have an inspiron 1520 with 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD and T7700 dual core and the upgrade took just 2 hours. I have heaps of programs and files on the laptop too.
I think the trick is to set your computer up to do a “clean boot” before the upgrade – google it. It runs the installation without any programs running so you don’t get conflicts. You don’t have to uninstall iTunes either as per the upgrade analysis – just deauthorize your account and then authorize it after the upgrade.