[jr2]

Wow... Apparently if your computer isn't stellar and you have around 500 gigs of data and around 40 programs installed, you just might be in for a real treat!

Windows 7 In-Place Upgrades Could Take 20+ Hours
Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:32 AM PDT

Guest Post by Justin. Justin is a small business owner and computer technician with Protocol16, supporting small and mid-sized businesses as well as consumers in the metro area of Portland, Oregon.

Microsoft has stated that some in-place upgrades from Winodws Vista to Windows 7 could take as much as 20 hours, or more, to complete.

Upgrade times are dependant on machine calibur and the amount of drive space the user is taking up. The worst times were achived by mixing a medium calibur machine and a larger profile of 650GB of data and 40 applications. This test took so long that Microsoft decided not to test a low calibur machine mixed with a very large amount of data.

Typical times for medium calibur machines and general users were around 2-3 hours.

Source: Computer World

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Oh, and I thought this interesting.  

Companies face operational problems if they try to upgrade to Windows 7 straight from Windows XP, Microsoft has warned.

Many firms have stuck with Windows XP instead of upgrading to Windows Vista, on grounds of costs and unwanted Vista features.

However, warns Microsoft, those firms that have stuck with XP may face problems if they leapfrog Vista and go straight to Windows 7, expected to be fully released early next year.

Gavriella Schuster, a senior director of Windows product management, said, "Make sure you take into consideration the risk of skipping Windows Vista. Deploying Windows Vista now will make the future transition to Windows 7 easier.

"If you are on Windows XP now and are waiting for Windows 7, plan on starting an early evaluation of Windows 7 for your company using the beta that is available now. Testing and remediating applications on Windows Vista will ease your Windows 7 deployment due to the high degree of compatibility."

Those that do not follow Redmond's advice on deploying Vista first, face the problem of some applications no longer being supported on Windows XP, and not being initially supported on Windows 7, said Microsoft.

[The E]

....Which is why I don't do upgrades, only replacements.

[Liberator]

Indeed, but replacing XP on a corporate level, even with a distributed install, is absolute hell.

The logical thing to do would be to experiment in the lab with representative machines and work up a ghost of what you need a particular department to have, and deploy on a department by department basis.

Still, this is a lot of downtime for anyone who wants to upgrade from vista.

[colecampbell666]

I'd never touch the "Repair" or "Upgrade" options on a Microsoft disc ever again, after a few run-ins with them. Too much difficulty with registries, old programs...

[MP-Ryan]

Upgrading = dumb.  Operating systems should be cleanly installed.

Large corporate environments generally have images deployed across networks, but I can see how smaller companies could run into problems.