That’s how much an upgrade from Vista SP1 can take

Sep 4, 2009 16:42 GMT  ·  By

According to Microsoft, the maximum amount of time that a Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to Windows 7 upgrade can take is 1,220 minutes. Yes, Microsoft has identified a scenario in which moving from Vista SP1 to Windows 7 lasts almost an entire day, over 20 hours. Affected by this are what the Redmond-based company referred to as Super Users running Mid Range Hardware.

In its work to assess Windows 7 upgrade performance, Microsoft has put together user and hardware profiles. The software giant considered a Medium User one that has “User Data: 70Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 20 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).”

The company’s Heavy User Profile is as follows, “User Data: 125Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 40 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).” The Super User Profile involves customers with “User Data: 650Gb of data (documents, music, pictures); applications: 40 applications installed; OS Settings modified; Optional Components: 15 optional components installed; Windows Targeted Release: 5 Windows Targeted Release installed (WTR).”

When it comes down to Hardware Profiles, it considers Low End Hardware computers with 1Gb of RAM, with AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3200+ 2.2 Ghz, a Hard Drive of 320Gb 5400 RPM ATA-6 and running either a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system. For the Mid Range Hardware, the configuration that qualify have 2 to 4 GB of system memory, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2.60 Ghz or Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz, and 1TB HDD up to 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s.

High End Hardware are machines with at least 4 GB of RAM, Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 Ghz, and 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s. Just take a look at the graphic on the left in order to get a more organized view of the data courtesy of Chris Hernandez, from the Windows Deployment team.

A Super User running Mid Range Hardware and performing a 32-bit Vista SP1 to 32-bit Windows 7 upgrade will have to wait a full 1,220 minutes before the process is over. Think this is much? Well, you’ll be happy to know that a Vista SP1 to Vista SP1 upgrade would take even longer, namely 1,305.72 minutes.

A Super User upgrading to 64-bit Windows 7 on Mid Range Hardware will have to wait 610 minutes, compared to just 480 minutes on High End Hardware, Microsoft informed. The same upgrade scenario on High End Hardware, but with 32-bit Windows 7 will take 675 minutes.

The fastest upgrade to Windows 7 Microsoft came across is 26.75 minutes, from a clean install of Vista on High End Hardware.

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