I downloaded RC-1 this morning and decided to note how long it took to install and how many reboots are involved. Why? I’ve installed Vista many many times over the past 18 months or so. It seems to have gotten much smoother and a little bit faster. But, it also seems like there are more and more reboots involved. So, here’s what I noted this morning.
- 10:49 - Placed the freshly burned DVD (from downloaded ISO) in the P4 2.8GHz 512MB RAM PC I’ve been using for testing every Vista release so far. It only has a performance rating of “1″ but seems to run acceptably well though I don’t see the fancy Aero Glass UI because of the lack of a dedicated graphics card.
- 11:02 - Clicked the upgrade button to upgrade over Pre-RC1 instead of performing a clean install
- 11:33 - PC rebooted itself
- 11:55 - PC rebooted itself again
- 12:00 - Completed upgrade message appears (but it really hasn’t)
- 12:22 - PC rebooted itself
- 12:24 - Completing Upgrade message appears
- 12:34 - PC rebooted itself
- 12:35 - Setup window allowing changes to locale and time/date appears
- 12:36 - Performance check notice appears (it’s still just “1″, no surprise :-)
- 12:38 - The Vista login screen appears!
- 12:40 - The Windows desktop appears but there is so much background activity that it is not really responding to clicks, etc.
- 12:43 - Background processes fade away and the desktop is usable
So, I saw four unattended reboots (did not require action from me) over the course of nearly 2 hours to upgrade from Pre-RC1 to RC1.
Cripes - I've installed multi-cd linux distributions faster than that, and that's including repartioning of drives. Of course, you don't reboot through Linux (or any unix) installation.
Heck I think installing an ancient SCO unix via floppy drives was quicker, less inconvenient and involved zero reboots.
Here we go again. More linux worshipers. In-case you haven't noticed this is still a beta. Plus your lucky that Microsoft even gives you a option to upgrade from Pre-RC1 to RC1. Imagine all the files it has to get ride of and settings to change for the upgrade. To be fair at least do a clean install and than tell us how many reboots and how long it takes.
And for you Cripes why don't you try installing your precious linux on a new laptop with a wi-fi card and see how good it does.
MadClown: First, I'm not a Linux worshipper although I use Linux as well as Mac OS X and Windows XP/Windows Server on a daily basis (Windows Vista nearly daily too since I am a part of the technical beta test group). This is *not* a beta. It is a Release Candidate. By definition a Release Candidate is named as such because the belief by the development/release team is that it is nearly ready for prime time. And, yes, I've done many clean installs on previous. Those instances included a couple of reboots too. But quite frankly, most people who buy a shrinkwrapped copy of Vista are going to upgrade an existing system. That's why I believed providing a timeframe based on an RC1 for the many people who will upgrade their system might be useful. Others will simply get it with their shiny new desktop or notebook and will not do any install - clean or otherwise. And, yep, I've installed Ubuntu Linux on an old Dell L400 notebook with an old Cisco Aironet card.
Took me about one hour to do a clean install. Yeah, must be about one hour.