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Windows 7 upgrade could take 20+ hours (reasons to do a clean install)
Now, reading those two descriptions, you would think that the latter would be faster and easier. And indeed, for many users, it is easier. But it's rarely faster.
In fact, in recent tests, it turned out that it could take more than 20 hours to upgrade a system from Windows Vista SP1 to Windows 7. To be fair, it could also take as little as 27 minutes. But if you've got a ton of data and applications loaded on your computer, you might be better off backing up your data and/or partitioning your hard drive and doing a clean install.
The test systems that had the fastest upgrade times had 20 applications installed and about 70GB of data stored on the hard drive. On these systems, it doesn't take much longer to upgrade from Windows Vista than it does to do a clean install, even on a relatively slow computer.
But if you want to check the test results and see if you can spend 20 hours upgrading your system all you'll need is a computer with 650Gb of data, 40 applications installed, a 2.6GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core 5200+ CPU, 2Gb of RAM, a 7200RPM hard drive, and the 32-bit version of Windows Vista SP1.
[via Engadget]
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsdtmaSep 12th 2009 2:26PM
Guis, you can reinstall your OS without formatting your non-C partitions.
The 21 Century called, they bid you welcome.
mkoSep 12th 2009 2:40PM
I'm not sure if 7 lets you do it but in XP you could install another copy in same partition using a different windows directory name
ericloeweSep 13th 2009 1:39PM
7 won't let you do that, but it can install itself on the same partition, just by moving the old installation's files (documents and setting/documents, program files and Windows). It's a half-clean install as I call it
SonicSep 12th 2009 3:05PM
Exactly.
@mko You can do that but it still isn't the best solution compared to a full clean install.
dtmaSep 13th 2009 8:08AM
@Sonic: why exactly should you delete your "Movies" partition when you reinstall your OS? How exactly is that "best", or even "better" ? IMO it's worse, a bothersome waste of time.
BrianSep 12th 2009 3:49PM
My upgrade from Vista x64 to Windows 7 x64 only took 3 hours. It was the best and most straightforward Windows upgrade that I've ever done. This was a month ago.
I usually do a clean install but decided to go with an upgrade this time. I have not been sorry! Not a single issue with any of my drivers or any of my many 32-bit and 64-bit apps. It's running faster than Vista x64 did so I don't see any negative effects from doing an upgrade.
FyrewerxSep 12th 2009 4:16PM
How long is the upgrade from Vista SP2 to Win 7?