If you are anxiously awaiting the release of Windows 7 in October, you may want to start preparing for the upgrade now to make sure it goes smoothly.

Chris Hernandez, a Microsoft Software Engineer, took to his blog to give out some details on what Vista users can expect when they try to update Windows 7 come October 22nd. The basic idea is, even if you have a high end machine, if you have tons of data and applications, you best expect it take up to eight hours.  If you are on medium hardware with the same amount of data and applications, you are looking at twenty-one hours.  You might want to start laying in the supply of coffee now so that you can get through it.

Here is the chart Mr. Hernandez came up with to show you just what you can expect.

Obviously the best solution is going to be to do a clean install, but moving all of your data if you are up in the Super User range could prove to be quite the pain.  It looks like an upgrade is just going to be an endless amount of pain when it comes moving to the latest iteration of the Microsoft operating system.  Also you need to keep in mind that these times do not include restoring data, reinstalling apps, grabbing updates and more.

As to why Mr. Hernandez felt the need to do this, he laid out his reasons very clearly.

• Windows XP is a vastly different operating system compared to Vista and an upgrade from Windows XP -> Vista would not be a good comparison with Vista -> Windows 7
• Windows XP did not support 64-bit upgrades and we wanted to track 64-bit upgrade performance as well as 32-bit upgrades for Windows 7
• Vista SP1 -> Vista SP1 is a valid upgrade path that exercises all upgrade code (this upgrade is commonly used by Product Support Services for a repair scenario)

So, what will be your option for Windows 7?  Clean install?  Upgrade?  Wait until you buy a new system?

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm under Microsoft.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
Stumble It!