With the official release of Windows 7 drawing closer every day, many people are preparing their systems for the change. A vast amount of more tech-oriented folk are planning a clean install of the upcoming operating system from Microsoft, whereas the rest are obviously heading for the upgrade route… one which could potentially cost them a lot of time. After a fair bit of testing the upgrade system, some rather interesting conclusions were made, which can be found here on the blog of Chris Hernandez (a Microsoft Software Engineer). Apparently, if you're a "Super User" (meaning you have over 650GB of data and roughly 40 applications), it could potentially take you almost 21 hours to upgrade to Windows 7.The results are categorized into three different sections: the medium user, the heavy user, and, as mentioned, the super user. There's also the clean category, representing a fresh install of the operating system. The times are additionally split between 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, with the latter being much speedier, regardless of data and applications installed. Most of the time, your upgrade will be fine; the speeds are reasonable in most areas, but it's when you move down to the super user that things start to get a bit hairy (and certainly provide more incentive to do a clean install).
During the testing, Microsoft also determined that upgrading to Windows 7 was "faster or equal within a 5% threshold to the Vista SP1 upgrade time," which is nothing but a good thing. We have included a chart of the results, put together by the lads over at Ars Technica.
Taking 21 hours to upgrade is really a Supremely Epic fail
For 650 GB of data?
The system itself (which is being upgraded) is not 650GB but more like 2GB, why would it need to do anything with other documents and applications installed on the system?
Data stored on non-system drives, non-system partitions, or even outside of system folders (i.e. Program Files and Users) won't have any effect at all.
It has to change file permissions, the permissons and ownership between Vista and Windows 7 are different.
The more files, the longer it takes - the more it has to analyse.
Having said that, I won't argue that 21 hours is too long.
Very true but then they wouldn't be considered a super-user would they?
Data stored on non-system drives, non-system partitions, or even outside of system folders (i.e. Program Files and Users) won't have any effect at all.
That's what I was thinking as well, but didn't know if I was missing something. This seems rather bizarre to me though... I mean, if they determined that it was as fast or faster than the upgrade to Vista, then that shouldn't be too bad... My upgrades all went pretty simple, and I have way more than 40 applications... So I think this is more a data issue... Simply copying 650 GB's of data would take forever, so I'm thinking that might have more to do with it...
Data stored on non-system drives, non-system partitions, or even outside of system folders (i.e. Program Files and Users) won't have any effect at all.
Isn't My Documents in the user profile? If so, this is the only place that users are supposed to store data. Or the desktop. In my company, and a lot of others, this is what gets backed up. So 650gig is not unreasonable.
Data stored on non-system drives, non-system partitions, or even outside of system folders (i.e. Program Files and Users) won't have any effect at all.
That's what I was thinking as well, but didn't know if I was missing something. This seems rather bizarre to me though... I mean, if they determined that it was as fast or faster than the upgrade to Vista, then that shouldn't be too bad... My upgrades all went pretty simple, and I have way more than 40 applications... So I think this is more a data issue... Simply copying 650 GB's of data would take forever, so I'm thinking that might have more to do with it...
Why copy it then? Why move it from one part of the hdd to another? This makes no sense. I understand that 7 might need the start of the hdd, but it doesn't have to move 650 gig for that, just the 2 gig or so that it needs.
Data stored on non-system drives, non-system partitions, or even outside of system folders (i.e. Program Files and Users) won't have any effect at all.
That's what I was thinking as well, but didn't know if I was missing something. This seems rather bizarre to me though... I mean, if they determined that it was as fast or faster than the upgrade to Vista, then that shouldn't be too bad... My upgrades all went pretty simple, and I have way more than 40 applications... So I think this is more a data issue... Simply copying 650 GB's of data would take forever, so I'm thinking that might have more to do with it...
Why copy it then? Why move it from one part of the hdd to another? This makes no sense. I understand that 7 might need the start of the hdd, but it doesn't have to move 650 gig for that, just the 2 gig or so that it needs.
My guess would be that Windows 7 creates clean Program Files, Users and Windows folders to eliminate issues with permissions, etc. To do that it has to copy the data out of the old folders, delete them, create new folders and then copy that data back into the new folders.
If you've got alot of users on the computer with alot of data in their profiles and a load of applications installed, I can see why upgrades would take a while using this method. I can't see any other way of doing it though so I'd reckon that's unavoidable.
If you've got alot of users on the computer with alot of data in their profiles and a load of applications installed, I can see why upgrades would take a while using this method. I can't see any other way of doing it though so I'd reckon that's unavoidable.
But doing that you don't need to actually "move" any data around in the disk, and the issue would be the number of files rather than the total size.
I'm with you on that one.
Plus you should have that 650gb as a 2nd hdd.
My girlfriend's laptop took roughly an hour to upgrade. It's a less than year old but low-mid end Lenovo with lots of music and photos and such on it.
The upgrade went perfectly well and she's much happier with the system. If she'd lost all her apps and had to reinstall them she wouldn't have been as willing to even attempt it.
Yes, exactly.
+1
Agreed. I've always preferred fresh installs for Windows and upgrades for OS X.
It really depends on the apps. I have about 15 apps i install after clean install and office takes longest to install.
Out of those 40 applications you probably only using 10 of them. So a clean install is a good time to clean house.
Good point. Even if you would reinstall all and take 3-4 hours to do it, it would still be a huge deal faster than upgrading, plus you'll have a clean PC rather than a slow, bogged down system.
Except that is incorrect. What you should do is gather all your application download sites into your firefox favorites. Port as many programs as you can on a 2GB SD Card. Download the rest directly from the exported HTML file which contains all your favorites (aka go to your download folder). Install them all. Install the ones that can be installed while installing other programs first and do it 2 at a time until you get to programs that need to be installed while nothing is running. This process for 60 applications took 1 and a half hours.
step 2 - ?????
step 3 - Profit
What I plan to do is reset my PC back to factory settings then uninstall all the crap that came with the PC as well as the programs I wish to keep. Then run a few system programs like defrag and more important a good registry cleaner before doing anything more. Once all that is done, I'll install Win7 and when its done, I'll install all my apps. That approached worked in the past and im sure it will work this time.
If I recall people made the same claims about Vista installs and it was a total wash.
step 2 - ?????
step 3 - Profit
+1 on the Underpants Gnomes reference from South Park
I will always install fresh, since you need to do this for old versions of windows anyway, it gives you such a speed bump. Hopefully W7 has fixed this, but if it still uses the registry, probably not.
Only this afternoon I installed on a 3 year old Dell Inspiron in about 20 minutes.
OK so doing the install from a USB stick might speed things up may help but it's unusual for MS to round up the way.
I once 'upgraded' XP Pro to Vista Business and it took 14 hours.
You wouldnt....but you may already have one of them installed to begin with. This isn't for a fresh machine...it's for existing users of the OS.
Keep your data on another drive, clean install, re-install apps...
It's complicated how it does it, since the Windows 7 install is actually image based. It has to move all of that data OUT, then bring in the Windows 7 image, and integrate all that data back into the new image.
That is what takes time, this is nothing more then people scared by something they don't understand.
No, how can anything by windows fault. It must be Apple fault. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
1) gathers settings and users files and moves them to a temp folder
2) completely delete all previous OS files (it saves them to be able to roll back if something goes wrong)
3) Clean install of windows 7
4) imports all the files from step 1
I thinks that an upgrade using this method is not bad at all. it doesn't goes too far from a clean install and saves a lot of time reinstalling and reconfiguring everything.
In my experience, an upgrade takes no less than 3hs on almost any system. I've done more than 15 upgrades so far and only on a notebook, doing an upgrade from two different builds of win7, took almost 12hs of gathering files just to end in an error, so no system files where affected. On the same notebook I re tried the upgrade but to RTM and in 3hs, it was complete.
1) gathers settings and users files and moves them to a temp folder
2) completely delete all previous OS files (it saves them to be able to roll back if something goes wrong)
3) Clean install of windows 7
4) imports all the files from step 1
Any official source from MS on this, or did you just make that up?
Because if it would work that way, it would never take up to 21 hours, so obviously it works quite differently.
Really all of this ripping on the upgrade process is just hold over arguments from old. System files don't get intermixed like they did with the 9x series.
1) gathers settings and users files and moves them to a temp folder
2) completely delete all previous OS files (it saves them to be able to roll back if something goes wrong)
3) Clean install of windows 7
4) imports all the files from step 1
Any official source from MS on this, or did you just make that up?
Because if it would work that way, it would never take up to 21 hours, so obviously it works quite differently.
It would if you had 650 GB of data, on a slow HDD/CPU.. all of that data has to be relocated.
1) gathers settings and users files and moves them to a temp folder
2) completely delete all previous OS files (it saves them to be able to roll back if something goes wrong)
3) Clean install of windows 7
4) imports all the files from step 1
Any official source from MS on this, or did you just make that up?
Because if it would work that way, it would never take up to 21 hours, so obviously it works quite differently.
That is pretty much exactly how it works. 21 hours is an absurd aberration and no one is ever going to see that (unless you have one of those ridiculously slow 4200RPM drive machines like a Vaio P that takes like 8 minutes just to turn on).
Then you should have no problem in pointing me to a microsoft.com page (not a page anywhere else!) which explicitly states that doing an upgrade will do a clean install and then transfer the settings, as you claim.
While the upgrade process is not the disaster anymore that it was until XP, I doubt that it does a clean install... but I'm waiting for you to give me any microsoft.com links that say it does.
1) gathers settings and users files and moves them to a temp folder
2) completely delete all previous OS files (it saves them to be able to roll back if something goes wrong)
3) Clean install of windows 7
4) imports all the files from step 1
Any official source from MS on this, or did you just make that up?
Because if it would work that way, it would never take up to 21 hours, so obviously it works quite differently.
Hey numbnuts.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2082983,00.asp
Not from Microsoft but you can do the research if you really are interested.
there were a few hicups but now it is running smooth. I am quite happy with this upgrade. Of course my x64 box will be clean.
(dell latitude e6500, core 2 duo, 4gb ram, 160gb hdd )
Its a HORRIBLE idea. MS has NEVER gotten it right. Every time I do an upgrade to a system whiten a week serious issues start happening. The system just starts being retarded in general forcing a clean load anyhow.
I wouldn't go by the chart. If you have errors on your drive it'll take longer or fail, if its heavily fragmented it'll go slow. if its a slow bus or drive or both it will be slow.. too many unknowns.
Anyone arguing against in place upgrades (vs. clean install) is thinking with the old win98/winXP mindset and needs to get with the times.
Anyone arguing against in place upgrades (vs. clean install) is thinking with the old win98/winXP mindset and needs to get with the times.
I agree, wth a clarification: "Clean install is no longer ALWAYS the best option."
Too many people here take the knee-jerk reaction and parrot the same old tired lines. I have performed several Vista to 7 upgrades and it was a fairly painless process. I would wager many people who argue against it just don't have the technical chops to pull it off. If your system was set up correctly and maintained properly you should have no major issues.
The upgrade went off without a hitch and is working flawlessly.
Cannot sleep darn medication keeps me awake sometimes, where was I... Oh yeah I couldn't beta test Windows 7 because of work commitments, I missed out. Now some of you may recall when Windows Vista was being tested just before release I discovered the same problem with Windows vista and posted it on neowin. actually I think it was 4hrs for an upgrade and 45 minutes to clean install.
I would never go for the option of upgrade, backup your files and folders and everything you want to save, download your drivers for Windows 7 ready before and then do a clean install. Never upgrade clean install always the best option in my professional opinion.
I make 2 or 3 images with Acronis, Ghost, etc and then begin.
Did you have 650GB of data?
A system doing a clean install would have no data on it, because a clean install requires formatting the drive.
Nope, only 250GBs. I erased it all by the menu reformatted the drive & installed. Took about 15 minutes for me as well.
*EDIT: Found the hardware spec on the guys blog, the high end doesn't seem all that great though. Exactly the same as mid but with a 32mb HDD cache.
Last edited by Nihilus on 13 Sep 2009 - 04:47
RC version of 7 (doing the edit the config file) and it took around 3 hours.
A clean installation is required to do so, right?
Thank you Neowins.
With the speeds you get on the internet now a days, I'd rather wipe everything out and start fresh anyway. I can re-download and install things faster than what the computer will do copying crap over.
Why anyone would want to save 650gb, or even 65gb, for that matter, of junk on their computer is beyond me anyway?
I know, 650 GB of data on your Windows drive!! What are you smoking?
Just because YOU don't have enough going on to warrant an upgrade doesn't mean it's the same for the rest of us.
I agree to you that's the right choice how to do things
As for migrating to a new OS...I'd put it on external media either way before doing the move regardless so I don't think any efforts saved there either really.
I can see why some people like multiple drives to organize things....personally I see the gains as pretty small.
then clean install whenever you want... i think any super user never upgrades os...
"Tweaking" your desktop settings and hacking the registry does not a "super user" make.
Some of us have actually been earning a living in IT for more than 20 years.
As they say, YMMV.
Think of "super user" as heavy user in this article rather than geeky user then
Yeah thats MS's term. If you look at the actual requirements it just means a user with a lot of data and apps.
If anything it would have more "novice" users that never delete anything than power users I presume who would be more likely to keep a clean system.
I've installed all utilities and apps i use. The longest upgrade i had was to 7600 and took about 2 hours.
Clean install and reinstalling all my stuff takes me 2 days.
INTEL DUAL CORE SERIE 6 AT 2,66 MHZ
6 GB DDR2 RAM
AROUND 80 GB OF DATA TO MIGRATE IN A 500 GB HD WITH 2 PARTITIONS
At work i have one 80 gig hard drive and upgrade lasted almost 4 hours, while at home i have 4 different hard drives, upgrade from vista (which is on separate 80 gig hard drive) lasted a bit more than half an hour.
I use almost the same set of software and settings on both places.
My opinion is that the upgrade is faster on computers with 2 or more drives than on those with only one drive, and if you have one drive with 650 gigabytes of data on it.....it could easily take lots of time to upgrade.
my $.02
Jokes aside, how many people are actually going to do that in the first place? Most tech-savvy users will do a clean install and the rest will buy a new computer.
The only reasons for such insanely long install times that I can possibly think of are, like someone else mentioned, that it takes a long time to build the initial Windows Search index if there are a lot of files to be indexed. But if that were the case why on earth would they be doing that during install? If that were the case, it would make much more sense to build the search index after everything is installed maybe?
I guess we'll just have to wait and see but for some reason I doubt I'll stumble upon a blog or news post (that's not full of crap) of a single user who has actually experienced such long install times. That being said, I've never performed an upgrade in my life of any OS from one major version to another. I have better things to do with my life. I keep all my information (documents, projects, music, movies, etc) on a portable drive that I backup weekly on another one. I performed a fresh install on my year old Dell XPS laptop and it took me 20 minutes to install and 2 - 3 hours to get up and running and customized to my liking with my most commonly used apps (which are not Firefox and MediaMonkey but more like full blown web development environments for ASP.NET, ColdFusion and PHP, including SQL, Virtual Machines and more).
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