Beware the 20 hour Windows 7 upgrade

David M Williams
Monday, 26 October 2009 15:33

IT Industry - Development

The upgrade scenario found its best result for a clean 32-bit Windows Vista upgrade to Windows 7 on mid-range through to high-end hardware. This came in at a respectable 30 minutes.

The same upgrade took an extra 10 minutes – 40 minutes total – on low-end hardware. Using 64-bit operating systems the process took an additional five minutes for the mid-range up or 10 minutes more on the low-end system.

However, Microsoft’s tests found that a medium user on low-end hardware could expect their upgrade to quite realistically take 175 minutes, or just shy of three hours.

A heavy user on low-end hardware fared much worse, with an expected 345 minutes to upgrade – or nearly six hours.

Lest you think the hardware is the problem, the super user profile on high-end hardware came in at 675 minutes, or over an astounding 11 hours.

Fortunately, for super users, if they were running 64-bit operating systems this time decreased to 480 minutes, or eight hours. Keep in mind, however, there is no 32-bit to 64-bit upgrade path. If you wish to upgrade to Windows 7 64-bit you must begin with Windows Vista 64-bit or the only choice is a fresh installation.

For the poor super user dropping down to mid-range hardware saw an incredible expected upgrade time of 1220 minutes – or more than 20 hours – for 32-bit. Pleasantly, though still small relief, a 64-bit upgrade halved to 610 minutes, or 10 hours.

So, the truth is out there. According to Microsoft’s own investigations the Windows 7 upgrade process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 20 hours or more based on the quality of your hardware, the amount of data you have, the number of applications installed, and the quantity of customisations you have made to the base operating system.

What is upsetting is that the Windows 7 installation gives no indication of progress and the poor user can be left wondering if their system has locked up or is genuinely working away.

Frankly, my belief is that Windows 7 isn’t worth upgrading to. Don’t take that the wrong way; if you’re a Windows user then Windows 7 is worth running, by all means – but do yourself a favour. Although it will be a pain to back up and to reinstall your programs you’ll get a much better experience and greatly drop your Windows 7 installation time.

My tip for a good Windows 7 installation is to take one simple precaution before you begin.

Install and run the free BelArc Advisor which details your hardware and installed programs, along with license keys. Print this report out. If you have any driver or software issues later at least you’ll know what you need.