Windows 7 installation time explains its death

How much time is needed to complete a Windows 7 clean and complete installation as of today?

My experience of yesterday:
Mac Mini: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 MHz RAM
Installation of Windows 7 Home Premium x64 ..................... 1 hour
Download updates prior to Service Pack 1 ..........................14 hours
(from ADSL2+ 8 Mbps download, but actual download speed from Windows Update was only 250-750 kbps (peak 500 KB)!)
Installation of Windows 7 SP1 after download .......................1/2 hour
Continuous download from Windows Update ........................ 3 hours
Download and install Security Essential + updates ................ 1 hour
Total Time needed to put Windows 7 up and up to date...........19.5 hours!!!

If this is a computer service @$70/hour, it'll take $1,365!

I never want to do it again!

 

Most computer repair shops will just reinstall the OS and call you to come and get it. It is your problem to get all the updates and what ever other programs you want. I don't have a shop, but do stuff for friends and neighbors and when they get the machine back, they have no updates to get and I also install the AV of their choice if it is FREE and a couple of malware/spyware programs and the Adobe stuff. I do JAVA also and then disable it. Usually takes me about 4 or 5 hours and I am on 8.0 DSL.
While I am doing that, I am on my PC doing what I want to do.

 

Hi Evan, I know all that in theory but in reality I just had all original Windows 7 DVDs without SP1 and couldn't find it from Microsoft site for download, so step-by-step was the only way. (If Microsoft has SP2, it would be a better deal.) The Internet, on ADSL2+, in theory, was a bit faster than 13.5 Mbps and on real test, at least 8 Mbps from Speedtest.net, but from Windows Update, it was as slow as 70-500 Kbps only. The Computer was fine; it took only <20% on 2 CPUs out of 4, and memory used only 700 MB. It seemed that Microsoft had cut down the available download servers for Windows 7.

Mr Bill, you're right but it's still annoying to peek on the installation from time to time and see if it's waiting me to hit a button, especially for Restart and Update. The problem was: I was only doing it occasionally, or perhaps the last time, so I didn't bother to automate the installation like a mass-production as the computer shops do.

 

How do you explain the slow download while the ADSL2+ downstream has been 11+ Mbps?

 

Big difference between Windows 7 Basic and Windows 7 Home Premium? Or the sluggish TPG's problem? Which ISP are you using?

 

The Virtual Machine on Mac was VMware Fusion 4.1.4. Once downloaded, the installation took reasonable time for each component, e.g. SP1 and each updates. ADSL2+ download 8+ Mbps and WiFi was 802.11n Dual Band. The real bottleneck was slow and non-responsive downloads at Windows Update. Each installation after download was fast. (Windows Experience Index: CPU rate 6.5, RAM 4.5, hard disk 6.5). The Restarts and shutdowns were normal speed for Intel i5. So, if you're so sure about Windows download server performance, then I'd believe it's the ISP's problem.
Supplemental info: After installing Windows 7 x64 Home Premium with all updates as of yesterday, I also use Windows Easy Transfer (instead of Fusion Migration Assistant) to migrate the user account and needed files (67 GB) which was smooth and fast via USB.

 

Reasonable.