How Long Did It Take To Install Windows 8?

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Reading along as this guy spends almost an hour to install Windows 8 is actually painful. Not sure why his install was so slow or why he thinks installing an OS "isn't easy." Anyone have Windows 8 installed already? How long did it take you?

Let me get the bad news out of the way up front: installing personal computer operating systems isn't easy, and Windows 8 is no exception. I've installed more versions of DOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS, OS X, Android, and iOS than I can remember over more than two decades, and the fact of the matter is that there's a basic level of technical difficulty.
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I installed the Upgrade Assistant, clicked checkout, bought my key, clicked the button that said "Begin Download" then after about 45 minutes of downloading I clicked the button that said "Install" and then the PC took care of the rest. Overall it was about 2-3 hours of downloading/installing and 5 minutes of me pressing buttons.
 
Also this guy sounds technically illiterate, seriously lines like this .

11:00 a.m. A message: "Please unplug the following external drive: D:" and the machine will restart. It doesn't take a genius to translate that as "Please unplug your USB drive," but seriously, "D:" is a hideous throwback to the old DOS days. And what if I did have an external drive plugged in, not just the USB thumb drive?
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make me facepalm.
 
About a half an hour, but only because it was being onrey about my second harddrive.
 
Excluding the download and DVD burn, I'd say less than 10 minutes to get it installed when I re-installed to my new SSD. Drivers and installing software took a little longer, but that's a task that's never really completed..
 
Went pretty fast for me, not including the random shit I had to change around for anything to install/work on this X220. That doesn't count.
 
For my own experiences: Win 8 was a really easy install. I didn't even have to think about anything with it. The worst part was entering the license key.

For the article: this guy is a total boob. The things he's complaining about are trivial at worst. ("Techie language" for the install type. Sheesh. It's especially bad when you consider it's a semi-tech web site he's writing for.) It's a horrible article. CNet should be ashamed for publishing it. I could see it on MSNBC or the New York Times, where the idiot anti-techies hang out, but not CNet.
 
It took the guy 44 minutes for the entire install process andhe had no problems at all. For some reason he just wrote the whole thing in a very negative manner despite what was clearly a positive experience. Sounds like he is just a pessimist.
 
Took me 30-35 minutes... barely had to do anything. It keeps getting easier and easier to install. Sounds like the normal cnet anti-anything-apple bias is coming through
 
My media server wouldn't install 2012 and 8 at all. It would sit on the blue Windows logo screen that comes up before the install button. I left it there overnight and it still sits at that logo screen.

But my HP Folio 13 laptop took a mere 5-10 minutes to install, ditto three other computers in the house. The pain in the butt part though is the Technet Windows 8 Enterprise version wouldn't activate using the Personalize screen. I had to use slrmgr in DOS prompt.

Other than that it was just a matter of customizing and adding programs.
 
For a dirty upgrade on my i7 system it took less then 20 minutes from the time I finished creating the USB drive to it being done. Also EVERYTHING just plan worked. No driver or app issues at all.
 
It was probably one of the easiest installs I have ever done even with it being an OS install. I used the upgrade assistant though instead of the DVD though.
 
It was awful! I think I had to reboot TWICE. And click "next" at least 5 times. Luckily I have an appointment with a stress counselor tomorrow so I can get back to normal.
 
It was pretty quick.Purchasing, downloading, and creating a thumb drive took some time through the upgrade assistant (about an hour)... but the actual install... 10 minutes or so from a pen drive to an SSD? It was very quick, very painless.
 
took me 35 minutes to upgrade from Windows 7. Very easy install and it took that long because I have tons of apps on my computer. No issues at all and all my apps worked perfectly after the upgrade.
 
Let me get the bad news out of the way up front: installing personal computer operating systems isn't easy, and Windows 8 is no exception. I've installed more versions of DOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS, OS X, Android, and iOS than I can remember over more than two decades, and the fact of the matter is that there's a basic level of technical difficulty
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Sorry gonna call this for what it is. LIAR..While I don't particularly like Win 8, the notion of it being complicated to install for anyone with this level of experience is laughable. It isn't any more difficult to install then any previous version.
 
bastage said:
For a dirty upgrade on my i7 system it took less then 20 minutes from the time I finished creating the USB drive to it being done. Also EVERYTHING just plan worked. No driver or app issues at all.
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Just completed the installation on my wife's PC.. It took about 45 minutes, but probably 30 of that was spent fooling with the hardware raid that came onboard her dell precision mobo. After I disabled it the install was very fast.

Overall windows 8 installation's are fast & smooth from the experience I have had with them thus far.
 
Less than 10 minutes on my SSD natively, on VirtualBox it took like less than 5 minutes which was very surprising.
 
Took me forever. At least a couple of hours. Because: I was doing the upgrade with that $16 deal thing from Windows 7 on my 64gb SSD. After 20 minutes downloading the 2gb upgrade, and a few more minutes of it unpacking and doing whatever, it told me I didn't have enough free space (x64 needs at least 20gb free to install). So I uninstalled a bunch of programs, made sure hibernation file was turned off, deleted all the temp and recycle bin files, etc, but the best I could do was 17gb free (all my docs, music, photos, etc are on a second drive). Kind of frustrating how big Win7 grows.

So I said screw it, and reformatted with Win7. That was off the DVD and took maybe 20-30 minutes. I didn't install any drivers or anything when it was finished, and I had ~33gb free to work with after I disabled the hibernation file. But then I had to re-download the Win8 upgrade, so another 20 minutes went by. And then it was another 20-30 minutes for it to install.

So that did the trick. There were no drivers to find when it was done, it already had the latest of everything. So a little longer than I thought, but that's what I get for running with a tiny OS drive and using the upgrade version.
 
RTM Pro on my tablets took about 10 minutes average, i7 920 with an SSD about 7, mechanical drive laptop and desktop, about 13, all from USB media.

If it's Zdnet and anyone but Ed Bott talking about Windows, it's not worth the power draw on your device to read the article usually.
 
It was like 40 minutes on a Dell Vostro 1000, but it's a pretty slow computer. An HP Probook at the office seemed faster, but I really wasn't paying close attention to it. Both were using hard drives, not SSDs and installing from USB. I'm tempted to try the Samsung n150, but it seems like Microsoft is sort of nudging people with 1024x600 resolution screens away since the store needs 1024x760 and 1366x768 is stated as a requirement to snap apps. Along with that Samsung uses some stupid software utility of their own as the only way to control screen brightness. Even updating to the latest Intel drivers for the GMA 3150 meant messing with registry keys in Win 7 Starter just to regain brightness control. :(
 
I've installed more versions of DOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS, OS X, Android, and iOS than I can remember over more than two decades, and the fact of the matter is that there's a basic level of technical difficulty.
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Seriously? Seriously? Installing/updating a new version of a mobile OS is included in his list of OS' he has installed?

Wow, credibility gone...
 
From powering up the PC with the jump drive plugged in 15 min until I had a working desktop and was online.

Q9400, 8gb ram and 120gb ssd.

I give MS credit as it was very simple and straight forward.
 
Around 20 minutes on my end. Lost 5 minutes because I had GRUB2 leftover on the drive... "Windows Boot Manager" didn't like that. A /fixmbr worked great (I like the new "advanced startup" menues.
 
I've only done clean installs with a usb drive, haven't tried an optical media install yet; but on a mechanical hard drive it was 20min or less. So it's pretty quick compared to XP.

The only problem I can say I've has is that the usb drive would boot extremely slow on my 790FX+SB600 board compared to my 975+ICH7R board. It would just sit there blinking for so long I thought it had frozen up or something so I tried different usb ports before just letting it sit there blinking and after like 10min the little spinner wheel finally started moving. Will most likely try optical next time on my 790 since it would probably be faster.
 
I've done two clean installs of Win8x64 so far--took 'bout 30 minutes each, IIRC. My system at home right now is strictly middle-of-the-road, too, and not cutting-edge as it was for so many years (I don't know about you guys, but I enjoyed maxing out a build when major cpu and gpu hardware updates averaged ~ 1.5-2 years apart, instead of all of the mindless "every-six-months" refreshes we have to endure these days. I'm actually grateful for the shortened economic cycles because that spells a very healthy market--but these days I find myself gravitating towards the middle of the road instead of the upper quadrant and the surprising thing is I am just as content with the end result as I ever have been.)

Anyway, for someone like the author of this piece, Stephen Shankland, who claims to have installed many an OS many a time--and I absolutely believe this guy 100% about that--he's protesting too much--so much so that I think I know what his problem is. I'd bet on the fact that I know what his problem is...;)

With a bit of practice and experience, installing a single OS is not, contrary to what he states, either challenging or technically difficult. And the more often a person installs a single OS down through the years and year after year, the easier it should become because with each new install your planning for the next install improves. That's the key to a single install--planning it in advance--the more you do it, the easier it gets.

But I think this guy has confused the baby with the bathwater. When you determine to become competent with not one major OS, but with two or three or--good grief--four or more major OSes--most of which are incompatible with each other--you haven't just doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled your workload and the amount of data that must be absorbed, maintained, and adjusted as the code demands--you've increased all of those things exponentially. That's the hard part--keeping up with all of them and doing all of them justice on a daily and ongoing basis. That's damned hard--he's right about that.

The really, really good news is that unless you're just an insane geek driven slobbering mad by some nameless, inner drive to "learn everything I can about every OS that will be obsolete ten years from the day I pick it up (which just about covers everything, I believe)!"--ie, being the world's foremost Windows 3.1 expert isn't much good for working with Windows Vista and later, etc.", then you shouldn't have much trouble either professionally or personally in picking a single OS and treating everything else in the market like Sunday afternoon hobby work. I speak with authority on this issue.

Any OS like Windows 8 with between ten and twenty million lines of code, if not more, has more than enough complexity to demand your full professional and personal attention, concentration, and devotion. So, if you are trying to do justice to Windows Vista/7/8 by way of also trying to corner the IT market with your knowledge of DOS, Linux, pre-Vista Windows, Mac OS, OS X, Android, and iOS--you are just asking for it. What's going to happen is that you are going to wind up a "Jack of All Trades and a Master of None"--and only half as good at all those OSes as you would have been had you chosen one and specialized therein. And the saddest part of the whole thing is that even operating at a diminished capacity--which means your work is never as good as it could be--it'll all be a lot harder, too. Very much like banging your head against a telephone pole "and other rewarding modes of enlightening employment"...:D Such pursuits are best avoided.
 
inbedwithhomer said:
Probably about 10 minutes on my SSD.
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Same, about 10 minutes. Getting the ISO, making the bootable USB and installing and finally getting to desktop again was about 20 minutes round-trip. It was a painless install.
 
took me about 4 hours from the start of digital download to Hi. It was ok.
 
i just installed it on my EEE notebook. 1.6 single core, 2gb of ram, clean install.

Took maybe 30 minutes.
 
i've installed 3 instances of 8 so far on real pc's and many more times on VM's. The only issue I've had was on an all in one hp machine, it installed just fine but once it got to first boot it would just crash, the worst part was that since I couldn't finish making the first user account it wouldn't let me boot into safe mode. Eventually i got it to let me boot into safe mode then I downloaded and installed the proper drivers for the 9300gs in it, was just a new and confusing error that could have been avoided if it had just continued to use the generic drivers until it had a chance to connect to the internet.
 
It took longer to prepare a bootable USB key and extract the files to it from the ISO than it did to install Windows 8.

Did a clean install on a dual boot stripped array. No preinstall RAID drivers, Windows 8 recognized everything and installed. It was painless and when I was done everything worked including the dual boot.

My experience goes back to Windows 2.0 and I can say this was the easiest install of Windows.

2 minor issues, AMD Radeon HD 4800 drivers with multiple displays drops to single display on reboot and Creative sound driver had to be downloaded and installed. All the other hardware was recognized and worked.
 
Download about 20 minutes.
Unpack 5 min
Upload to new USB 30 minutes
Install 14 minutes
Correcting post install driver / program issues 120 minutes
My 4 way sli just had massive issues.
Sound had issues, nic had issues, even my USB hub had issues and then a number of programs had issues. However, all were solved and work.
If you add up the time it's worse then him, but what do you count?
 
I did a upgrade from 7, that didn't take long. Waited around 50hrs for a Media Pack Key. Tried to install media pack key, it failed every time. Formatted drive and did clean install of Win8 went rather fast, then another 15mins probably for installing Media Pack key. All in all it took alot of time to get a proper setup going.

I seem to have bad luck with Windows. Had to do a complete re-install with windows 7 when SP1 came out. SP1 would not install at all and that was a full/clean install when win7 came out.


and yes, I'd like some cheese with my wine ;)
 
About 3 hours
Installed windows 8 = 45 minutes
constant blue screen
installed windows 7 Again = 45 minutes
 
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