RSSWhat is a Windows 7 upgrade, really?
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published September 15, 2009, 4:05 PM
In a blog post earlier this month that didn't raise any eyebrows at the time it was released, Microsoft Windows Deployment team leader Chris Hernandez posted the results of an internal company study gauging the amount of time required by different profiles of Windows Vista-based computers for an upgrade to Windows 7. According to Hernandez' numbers -- which did not surprise me in the least; in fact, at the time, I didn't think they were significant enough to highlight here in Betanews -- Hernandez' team estimated it could take as much as 20 and one-half hours to complete a Windows 7 upgrade, for an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600-based system with 4 GB of DRAM, and a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive full of 650 GB of data, including 40 pre-installed applications. (For the record, that hardware profile is very much like the system I use for testing Web browsers.)
Hernandez' objective was to demonstrate that it takes less time to upgrade to Windows 7 than it did to upgrade from XP to Vista, usually on the order of 5%.
Several days later, the report aroused the curiosity of Ars Technica's Emil Protalinski. Producing a much better-looking chart than Hernandez, Protalinski accurately related the minimum upgrade time from Microsoft's various profiles (40 minutes for a 32-bit upgrade of a cleanly pre-installed Vista) and the 20.25 hour maximum. "We don't even want to know how long it would take if Microsoft had bothered doing the same test with low-end hardware," Protalinski wrote.
Cue the blog-O-square, which responded with links to Ars' report along with the requisite hyperboles. Writes one, "If you're a heavy Microsoft user with a large hard drive and with many, many applications, stock up on coffee, pizza or beer. Or just have one of those upgrade parties with your friends." And Yahoo suggests, "Set Aside Your Weekend."
At last, the delayed uproar provoked a response late yesterday from one of the true voices of reason with regard to Windows processes, ZDNet's Ed Bott. In his blog post yesterday, Bott suggested that perhaps the reason for the prolonged upgrade experience (which, by the way, was also prolonged for the Vista upgrade as well) was because Hernandez' test setup didn't reflect users' real-world experiences. If enough folks spent 20 hours in the upgrade cycle, "we would have heard about it already from the 8 million or so people who installed Windows 7 in its beta, RC, and RTM releases," Bott wrote. "Yet I don't remember reading any such complaints. Do you?"
Actually, yes I do, but I'd rather not reproduce them here because this is a family-friendly news service. In fairness, they weren't worth reading let alone posting. From the gist of their tone, I'd actually venture a guess that the complainers experience was much further from the real world than Chris Hernandez.
As many regular Betanews readers are already well aware, I'm already on the record as saying that if you have Vista, you should upgrade to Windows 7. In fact, here are my complete upgrade criteria: 1) You have Vista. If you said "yes" to the above, you should upgrade to Windows 7. That's regardless of what hardware you have, because it is my professional opinion that Win7 is friendlier and even better for older hardware than Vista.
But does Hernandez' extreme-negative upgrade experience represent anything you might expect in the real world? Ed Bott suggests that Hernandez' 650 GB data profile is unrealistic: "I have copies of every e-mail message I've sent and received since 1995 and every book and article I've written since 1998. Collectively, those files add up to 212 GB. The only people I know with 650 GB data collections are professional videographers and BitTorrent addicts."
Hi, Ed, how do you do? I performed a little inventory a few minutes ago, on just the systems in my office that I use for business. Right now, they're consuming 581 GB of data on four hard drives. Mind you, with the exception of some sporadic music and video files (all of it legitimate -- I actually wouldn't have time to become a BitTorrent addict if I had the time), most of this pertains to my business. My archival data is all stored separately, right now on hundreds (not a joke) of full DVDs. PR photos, test cases, book chapter drafts, white papers, case studies, source code, betas, alphas...I am a big consumer of business data.
Now, if you asked my wife, you'd hear that I am perhaps not of this world. The fact is, I know more and more people like me, and I'm meeting more all the time in this business. I actually applaud Ed Bott for being able to conserve as much space as he has over the last decade; if he wants to write his next book about how he accomplished this, my wife may apply to be his editor.
But how much time do I spend on Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrades? Without having yet conducted any scientific tests on the matter (for reasons which become clearer after reading Hernandez' work in detail), I've found that I can expect Microsoft's automated upgrade process to consume just under three hours. What's nice is that I'm not watching over it like Snoopy's impression of a vulture; I can get it started, go off and use some other machine, and come back in a few hours to see it's almost done.
However...If anyone seriously believes that this is all that's required for a Windows upgrade process, then he may never have been a hired consultant. Especially with branded laptops, there's a significant amount of preparation that has to be done beforehand. With one Toshiba system, I re-flashed the BIOS, uninstalled a few Vista-oriented drivers that were bothering me anyway (including an old ATI video driver whose newer version wasn't working on Vista), and uninstalled some apps that I knew would have trouble, including third-party anti-malware whose retailoring for Windows 7 isn't yet complete. Then after Microsoft's part of the upgrade was done, I spent several more hours testing existing apps -- did the profiles for Outlook 2007 survive? Do my developers' tools need to be reinstalled? Are the drivers functional? Can I print?
One Toshiba made big popping noises prior to making any kind of sound, literally hiccupping before anything came out of the speakers. Did I write a big, hyperbolic blog post about it? No, I installed the upgraded Conexant audio driver I found from the manufacturer's Web site -- problem solved. My video was fuzzy after the upgrade. I re-installed the ATI video drivers that just came out for Win7. Problem solved, crisp and clear video. I couldn't sync with my BlackBerry. Downloaded Desktop Manager 5.0, problem solved. I couldn't tether to my BlackBerry. Downloaded the newest VZAccess Manager, problem solved. My phone recording software didn't work. Downloaded brand-new TRx Phone Recorder, problem solved.
The reason you typically don't read many complaints from me about processes such as Windows upgrades is not, as a few commenters here have suggested, because I'm being paid under the table by Microsoft or anyone else. It's because I've been in this business long enough to have learned to solve problems before whining about them. In fact, if readers should take anything away from Betanews, I believe it is the ethic of solving problems before whining about them. Improve software. Improve business. Improve life. There's plenty of blogs out there for whiners.
So Yahoo suggests that an upgrader actually set aside a whole weekend to do a Windows upgrade...Since when have we not had to do that? Maybe I'm just acclimated to working in the IT industry, but making all the preparations and doing all the post-setup corrections are part of the job. As many other colleagues have stated, if you want to have a more guaranteed flawless upgrade "experience," where you know for a fact that what you do will probably work right without your direct involvement, then yes, get a Mac. Speaking for myself, I like to be in charge of the hardware I use (I do build my own desktop and media PCs), so I make the required investment in time and energy. For me, it is worth the time, and I am happy with the results.
Windows will never be flawless. But over the last three decades, Microsoft has faced down the challenge of working reasonably well with an infinite combination of the world's hardware -- a task that is easily as technically complex as sending humans to the moon and back. To guarantee an operating system that works well with hardware, you have to guarantee the hardware; that's what Apple does. It's an honorable decision and it works for Mac users. If you want choice in this business, however, you have to work for it. No one's going to provide perfection on a platter for you. Good computing is worth working for.
Windows 7 upgrade process:
Format.
Install Windows 7.
Hit Windows Update to get all your drivers.
Restore your user data from your backup.
Total time - 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending how slow your backup source is. Upgrading is a mug's game, IMO. You'll ended up with a slower, probably buggy install of a new OS that will never be quite as satisfying as a fresh install.
Score: 0
|BTW... I know you're sick of me keep making prophecies that ALWAYS COME TRUE due to my immense intelligence and ability to absorb dimensions upon dimensions of variable data for any given topic...
But yes...
I told you so hehehehehe AGAIN...
http://www.betanews.com/...rve/1251149015#talkback
"upgrading from XP/Vista to Windows 7 will cost MANY MANY HOURS OF WORK... 20 HRS IS THE BARE MINIMUM"
Now the INTELLIGENT experts AGREE.
Yeah... some of you idiots claim they can do a PERFECT upgrade in less than 10 hours. Obviously later on they'll slowly re-tweak their new OS to how their old OS was configured...cuz they simply AREN'T CAPABLE of IMMEDIATELY upgrading to a PERFECTLY TWEAKED NEW OS (which requires at least 300 various individual OS & software tweaks/adventures). And I'd wager my left testicle that they don't keep documentation on how to re-do what they did on the Win7 upgrade on their next..and the following..Win7 installation. MOST PEOPLE ARE JUST CLUELESS IDIOTS, EVEN 95% OF PC TECHNICIANS. Well, compared to me, at least hehehehe
Score: -4
|You know, you come very close to making a point. A shame your such an immmature, pompous little a-hole. Buh-bye now!
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|Putting the core-OS (mainly Windows folder) on a separate partition is the smartest thing you can do... I try to do it all the time personally... You can pre-allocate the right HD space (10GB for XP, maybe 20GB for Win7) and that space will NEVER grow too big since Program Files and User Profiles will be on another partition. You'd be wise to set a huge STATIC virtual memory file to avoid wasted overhead on resizing/rethinking the virtual memory, and avoid fragmentation. 20GB of HD space are very very cheap these days...
You could also defrag the core-OS partition much faster than the Data+Prog Files and the core-OS partition is the MOST CRITICAL PARTITION TO ALWAYS KEEP THE LEAST FRAGMENTED AS POSSIBLE.
By putting core-OS in its own partition you could also make smarter more flexible backup decisions -- such as .. let's backup the OS partition, format it, and just TRY Windows 7. Slowly we could move/copy/repoint the data from Orig Profiles and Orig Program Files to the new locations and if all went well - tada -- we're on Windows 7. If anything failed -- reload the OS partition only and you're back to your older OS WITHOUT HAVING TO WASTE TIME MOVING DATA OR PROGRAM INSTALLATIONS AROUND.
It actually works quite beautifully if you know WHAT THE HELL YOU ARE DOING hehehehehe
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|lol @ using the word "test" in reference to your spammy "advertise chrome as the second coming because it doesn't block ads" series of spam you have posted under the heading of 'browser tests"
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|Do you guys know what the chances are of an upgrade fail from Vista to 7? I'm sort of a luddite when it comes to these things, so I'm pretty nervous about putting in the CD when I receive it sometime in October.
And if it does fail, what are the usual methods of fixing it? My laptop is fairly new (the model came out this summer), so I don't think there'll be any problems with drivers...
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|The chances are unknown, since nobody has really measured mass consumer migrations before with this particular OS. My recommendations are to wait at least a month to verify that others with your software and hardware have migrated fine. Ideally you should wait for SP1, because no matter the WIndows 7 hype and testing, there will be hundreds of issues with it upon release.
Then do a full backup. preferably image based and file based, to media that is not directly connected to the system during the upgrade.
Then go for it. Windows 7 will verify the environment automatically and should stop if it encounters anything strange, with recommendations on how to fix.
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|I Upgraded and everything is fine and y have like 3 month now and i love it. I think everyone should upgrade.
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|I'll tell you something interesting, when I installed W7 Beta, it didn't like my plug in Philips external hdd. XP saw it fine but W7 wanted to re-write all the description sectors etc etc.
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|Strange. How was it formatted? How is it connected? IS it a typical USB-ATAPI bridge, or is phillips doing something "interesting"?
I have about a dozen or Hard disks I use a USB-ATAPI adapter for. I also have a few enclosures and flash discs that don't use that adapter (built in, or plain USB flash). Never had a problem with any of them (Except my Lenovo flash drive...which regardless of XP/Vista/7 wants me to check it for errors every time I plug it in....even if I just *did* that...it's the hardware on that one, not Windows)
Score: -1
|Just two funny things before the big why :)
1) "but making all the preparations and doing all the post-setup corrections are part of the job"
Your job, my job, some people passions but definitely not the typical customer one, or I have the wrong bunch of friends :)
and
2) "actually wouldn't have time to become a BitTorrent addict if I had the time" this one was good but It may be my french that get me to misunderstood the sentence... Still If I had the time, I'll have the time too :)
More importantly I wonder why nobody ask The Simple Question :) :
WHY DOES IT TAKE SO LONG ?
Installing an OS is just copying files and doing maybe a few moves or conversion on some critical parts , it should not be that grand sorcery .. We should just have a look at the BSD upgrade process or most unix ones or the mac one (I am not speaking of the application support here but the upgrade process per see).
Why why why does windows need to have special files strange boot records, huge registries, multiple copies of the same file to backup up potential user mistakes that are in fact os deficiency etc etc ....
Why does the drivers need to be NEW for each version and the whole driver model to change every other version ?
Why is this OS not capable anymore to reliably do a file copy in a reasonable time ? File operations are the CORE of an OS !!!! How can such an OS even SHIP as an OS ?
Why is this OS, now in its seventh full version still not f..ing (pardon my French) mature ?
PS: Maybe the windows installer uses the OS file copy routines to do its job, that would explain why it takes so long to complete ... :(
Score: -2
|My XP Pro. machine was bought that way, it'll stay that way until it's final gasp. My soon to be brand spanking new top of the range envy of all my friends laptop, will have Windows 7 already installed, and that's the way it'll stay until it's, or my final gasp, and that's as it should be. If Bill had wanted us to mess about with his O/S he'd have made it easier, now wouldn't he ?
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|Whoops,my apostrophe placing errors were spotted, alas a little late for correction,but then as punctuation has always been a bit of a mystery to me, it's, not, surprising, really'
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|*laughs*
Gud thingh they're arnt NE grammer natzi's hear.
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|Write until one is out breath, insert comma. Write until one is on the verge of blacking out, insert full stop. Apostrophes to be used frequently. What's the betting the guy who marked down my post is an Opera user, Chrome rocks bro.
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|I'm not really sure how you get any easier than "put disc in drive, restart, pick partition, enter product key".
Score: -1
|Vista is garbage and 7 is trash.
XP is a fast and clean OS. Windows 2000 is even better IMHO.
Snow Leopard took 45 minutes to install for a client. Simple and easy.
Don't really care for Mac. But 45 minutes compared to 20 hours. Yeah. That's not even
counting upgrades that fail half the time.. that should be more like 20 days.
Its amazing that Microsoft has come this far. They don't care what people think,
don't listen to what people want and force people to upgrade whenever they can.
Stupid.
Its really simple Microsoft. Dump the garbage and build your next OS with XP's core.
Don't try to incorporate every single feature out there.. That's what 3rd party programs are for.
Make the OS light and fast and clean and it will always be a winner.
Score: -10
|I never care about upgrading options o windows, since Windows 2000 i reserve an partition (Now an 160 Gb HD) to windows alone, and i try to keep the max number of files away from the Windows HD, so i can clean install aways i feel i must.
About painfully long install time, in PC's it is a rule, look to hackintosh's, even havin an all compatible hardware, it takes time to be well done... maybe this is the main reason that apple don't care about entering the OS market, they have fear to not offer a good product.
Score: 0
|I've noticed on at least 2 older computers that the Windows 7 install claims that it needs a driver for the CD/DVD drive when it really wants a driver for the chipset. I've verified this with installing off 3 DVD drives and a 4GB Flash drive. And on another computer (not that old), the Win7 setup claimed that it had lost communication with the drive. Btw, tried Ubuntu on one of those older computers (Dell Precision 450) and it installed without a hitch. That said, Windows 7 has been working great for me (aside from the difficulty sometimes of installing). And I've made sure to do a clean install each time. An upgrade might be convenient in the short term, but pay now or pay later.
Score: -1
|Actually, I did an XP to Vista directly to Win7 and it took longer to upgrade to Vista than to Win7. I did this on my old home server (at least 4 years old and not the latest when I bought it) and except for a a partition crash cause by some software other that Win7 it has run flawlessly.
I am even able to run my XP only printer drivers and a couple of other software flawlessly in XP compatibility mode.
Now mind you I have the OS it's own 35gb partition but so far RC has been running for 2 months. I even had a couple of times software crashed it and after running the new chkdsk during reboot all came up fine save the one complete partition crash on my second hard drive.
I bought a new laptop with Vista on it and I hate it. Win7 is easier to use and faster. Install it now as a release candidate or when it ships. I don't think a clean install is required for this one.
This is the most pre-tested OS in history and save a couple of minor complaints, I have found no major flaws. I used to be a Microsoft hater, but they have outdone themselves this time.
Not to say I don't have a long list of things I want to see in the next os. Things such as eliminating the registry use by everything except the os data itself and an os only partition that forces all software settings, and files onto a different partition, as well as, all settings for each software into it's own secure little pod. This would prevent HP from filling my registry with outdated entries going back to dot matrix printers for it's latest photosmart printer drivers and software.
Score: -1
|Anyone using anything Ed Bott says as a measure, deserves what they get. Bott is one of those people who is so self-involved he must play 'can you top this' with every situation.
I once commented that I was able to replicate a situation where, depending upon memory, and version of Windows, I can make the Explorer crash. It happens in every version of Windows up to Vista. He felt the need to respond that he had just moved and renamed 23,000 files with Vista (the move and renaming is what triggers the problem) on his machine. The point was, he would not take it that I have been able to do this with every version of Windows, from 3.1 all the way thru Vista, with no regards as to motherboard manufacturer, processor maker, memory installed, or time of the month (g). MY point was very clear, it is not something I say off the top of my head.
When someone came back and agreed with me, he blew their opinion off as well, as though he was some sort of divine arbiter of everything.
As anyone who has been around computers for a while knows (or should know, in his case) problems with computers are quirky and widespread. Unless you have a signature from God himself, disputing what someone else has observed is simply stupidity.
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|I've learned in Vista not to just launch Windows Explorer and do a search in the Search field. The attempt to search all my drives chewed up RAM and CPU, making my computer unusable. I haven't tried it in 7.
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|I wouldn't recommend a in place upgrade anyways. It's always better to start from scratch when you get a new OS.
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|The biggest issue I see is my GF has a 32-bit Windows Vista install, and we'll be migrating to Windows 7 64-bit [after it goes SP1,] on then-new hardware. Combined with standard user programs, games, sysadmin tools, her Interior design tools, we're looking at over 100 apps that will require reinstall and five separate profiles to migrate over three partitions, two of which are RAID1. Just to back up her main system drive will take several hours. If only there was in-place 32-bit to 64-bit, while not breaking anything...
Score: 0
|You should have a backup of all that data anyways. What happens if someone breaks into her house and steals the computer.
Score: 0
|"Right now, they're consuming 581 GB of data on four hard drives."
Bzzt!
A Win7 upgrade will ignore anything not on the system-drive. So the spread is meaningless. What's on the system-drive?
For the average user (and this is funny, because what "average user" is going to "upgrade"??, you are pretty much dead-on. 3 hours. I'll agree with that.
For the rest of us: No upgrading.
For those that must: Store the data on a separate partition/drive...problem solved. This is good "Best Practices" for *any* OS. You'll rarely see a Linux installation without separate /home and /root partitions. With Windows 7, this is even easier because you can now add virtually *any* location to your libraries (or even change the default location of the libraries..though that's a bit esoteric).
This is one area, though, that I will agree that Windows needs to do a *much* better job on. Getting rid of the Registry (or at least creating a ghost registry file in each applications program folder that stores the registry entries it created and restores them post-upgrade) and denying any and all access allowing these idiots to put DLL files in system folders would go a long way to help. Everything the program needs should be in the program folder (and possibly a Program/Menu folder). It should *never* put anything anywhere else.
Score: 5
|Edit:
"A Win7 upgrade will ignore anything not on the system-drive."
Should read:
A Win7 upgrade will ignore anything not on the system partition.
Score: 0
|Nicely said!
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|Very, very good questions! What's on the system drive? On the Toshiba I mentioned earlier, about 127 GB consumed on the system disk. On my desktop systems, I _always_, _always_, separate my data disk from the system disk (usually an 80 GB drive, or in more recent circumstances, a bigger disk with an 80 GB system partition), for exactly the reasons you describe. Problem solved.
And as for what you said about the Registry, buddy, you're preachin' to the choir here. John C. Dvorak has nothing on me with regard to loathing the Registry.
-SF "What Was Wrong With .INI Files?" 3
Score: 1
|It's not that I mind the registry horribly, it actually does have it's uses. It's that it basically broke so much in the way of moving from OS to OS..and these problems date back to the System.INI...which in and of itself was a nightmare. So I'm not really with you on the INI file bit. ;)
I think the best solution would be for Windows to "remap" the Program Files folder (like it does now if you copy the Documents&Settings folder from XP) to an (configurable location) "Apps" folder and "ghost" the registry settings to a .reg file in the apps folder. It can even use that linking/remapping to force difficult programs to *not* use the system folders.
Upgrades? Feh... Move the "Apps" and "Users" folders to a temporary drive, wipe, install, move back and run the .reg file. Heck, the "default" upgrade option of the OS could even take care of that bit for you at that point.
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|That is an interesting statement considering that I have my OS on one partition, my program files on another, and my user and data files on another - ALL of which have some things that are part of the Win7 Upgrade (program files are certainly part of the upgrade process, as are user files which become part of the new library structure - so making such a statement is certainly not true in all cases.
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|*laughing*
Nothing interesting about it. There may be .001% of users out there who have registry-hacked Windows into having it's "%programfiles% and %MyDocuments% on other partitions. Frankly, I have tried that all of *once* (because it does make more sense) and it was more trouble than it was worth (because Windows and the applications run in it just weren't built that way). I have no idea how a windows upgrade would handle that aside from breaking it completely...thus making the entire exercise pointless (assuming it was done to make upgrades easer?).
You're a freak exception. (Not a comment regarding your personality or nature, just the extreme situation you represent) Obviously, if someone modifies the default behaviour of Windows to such an extent, there will be complications/differences.
Score: 0
|You can make symbolic links in windows 7 and vista for that matter, to move the entire Users folder to a different partition, same with the program files ones.
the "mklink" command is useful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link
I actually wish they would have added the options to the installer as Advanced options to break user data off to a separate partition or drive, on the install.
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|That's what I am sincerely hoping for in the next version... A default option for doing it.
Anything less and developers will not code to be compatible with such a setup thus rendering it pointless. It *has* to be the default.
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|yeah, its really nicely said.
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|well thats a long article that provides no useful information...
most those users upgrading to 7 will know what all is involved in the pre-upgrade process
clean up your system, move large unneeded files off your system, defrag (done days before hand) and... upgrade! hopefully all goes well and most of your apps work, copy back your documents, photos, videos whatnot ;P fix broken apps, you're done.
my OS footprint is not large, on a mid-range system, an upgrade takes 39min or less (3 year old PC), 14min clean. let me just put it this way, if your upgrade somehow takes a day, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG, period
most users upgrading wouldn't do it wrong, it wouldn't be their first time upgrading or upgrading somebodys PC for them and they know the drill before hand
regardless, one should always opt for clean install grabbing all necessary drivers before hand if need be, keeping files on different partitions or external drives
Score: -3
|Psst, I think you mean GB "Ed Bott suggests that Hernandez' 650 MB data profile is unrealistic" :)
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|Sure did, thank you very much for catching it!
-S "M" F3
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|Great article. The fact I read something this long says how well written it is. It is definately true, Good computing is worth working for. And thank you for telling those whining bloggers to stfu. You have done the interwebz a great service.
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