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Am planning on doing a clean install form vista 32-bit to windows 7 64-bit. Was just wondering how long I should plan for this taking.

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Community wiki? There is no real answer to this question, the installation time varies too much depending on the hardware. – Snark Nov 8 at 20:18

6 Answers

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Depends on your hardware. It took me about 15 minutes on an i7 box with 6GB DDR3. Your DVD drive's read speeds can also have an effect.

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a normal Windows 7 installation will take about 15-30 minutes until you're at the desktop and ready to do stuff. Then you likely want to plan for driver installation for any non-trivial hardware that you have and also Windows Update.

If it's a critical machine and you need a solid time plan I would estimate around 2-3h for the whole procedure, depending on your amount of hardware and your personalization settings you want to add.

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Give it a few hours. Actual install (for Vista, XP was hella slow) shouldn't be very long at all, but configuration and making sure everything feels right will take more time.

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depends on how well you have prepared yourself for the 'big day'.

have you got all drivers handy?

did you check your machine for any incompatibility issues? (if not, run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if your PC is ready for Windows 7)

other than that, the installation of the OS itself won't take much longer than 15-20 minutes on a decent system.

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On a clean install doesn't the hard drive get formatted? – Glenn Nov 8 at 18:26
I do believe if you are going from Vista to 7 you can just "upgrade" without a format, but I could be wrong. – Nathan Adams Nov 8 at 20:32
you can, with an upgrade disc, but it wouldn't be my preferred method. during a clean installation the hard drive will be formatted (hence the term 'clean'). if you're looking for an in-place upgrade, you may rephrase that question of yours. – Molly Nov 8 at 20:42
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On a dual Core AMD 4400+ with "nothing special" and 6 GB of RAM the 64 bit install took me 26 minutes from disk insertion to a "start" menu. Strangely, it took +/- a minute exactly the same time to install on my AMD based dual core laptop with 2 GB of RAM. (Ultimate version installed on both). And, not surprisingly, it took about the same time on the 32 bit version on a Win7 desktop I am using as a media center with 2 GB of RAM and the same AMD 4400 CPU in it.

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Install 32-bit to windows 7 64-bit? I am not sure how I (we) could do that.

My advice is don't even take the celophane off the DVD until you have run the Windows 7 Upgrade advisor

As for the upgrade it took me 90 minutes.

I do believe you will be looking at a fresh install. My advice is take the longest time anyone tells you then add on 30 minutes.

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