Win7 SP1 released to public

David Ben Yosef said:

Night Hawk said:

Dvd? XP came on cd-rs.

I'm aware of that. Your not following me. I said it was faster to do a clean install of XP with a 12x CD, than a clean install of Windows 7 with a 4x DVD.

A 4x dvd? I installed 7 from the retail dvd in 20min. as usual. For the two prevvious versions(XP cd, Vista dvd) about 40min. The first few minutes isn't actual install time like you think but copy of the setup files over to the hard drive. The first restart then sees the installer load followed by the temp files being cleaned afterwards. (if you use the Windows install cleanup that is. :))

Now for comparing the SP install times with XP SP1 came on the first here while SP2+SP3 roughly 20min., Vista SP1=45, SP2=20, and now for the 7 SP1=50min. before restart and configuration.

Note that these are average times seen with the stand alone exe not any direct download/install through the MS updates when making the comparison.

Odd is seeing it take more then 20 minutes for a 7 install even on an old XP build with a 2ghz cpu and 1gb of ram where one 512 had to be reseated for the 1gb total. When seeing a clean install of XP on that same case later try a good 40min with the same optical drive! Then another 20 for SP3 to finish that up.

Likewise eventually when the second SP for 7 is seen that will likely go on faster since the second stand alone SP always seem to be smaller in size then the first for each version. The first addresses the bugs and initial security fixes as well as enabling support for things often not even in consideration during the early development of each Windows version.

SP1 will be bringing a new Dynamic memory management for Hyper V just as SP1 for XP addressed the 137gb barrier back then. For Vista SP1 saw the full amount of memory reported in the system information when having more then 3+gb on the 32bit editions.

Speaking of "milage may vary" when restoring an older Vista laptop with a clean install there it took some 90min. to see that version's SP1 go on. The 1.6ghz cpu speed and 1gb of ram suggests one reason for the additional length of time it took! 120gb 5,400rpm drive and an 11hrs. total to get everything done!

Later the 120gb was replaced with a larger 500gb 7,200rpm model where an image of the 120 was restored to that. Since you couldn't expand the C primary out a second storage/backup partition was seen to in order to avoid another full install of everything including both SPs. The memory was replaced with a 2gb sodimm which helped but 90min. for an SP plus another 90min for all other updates once SP1 was on?!

The clean install of Windows was something as well as but not nearly as long reaching the desktop in just under an hour. XP would have been right up there close to that while 7 would have seen about 35min estimated still done in less time then the two previous but a ssssslowwww.... machine to work with!