Windows 7 Installation and bootup extremely slow

[Lazure]

These are my system specs:

Motherboard: Intel DG965RY (latest bios version)
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13ghz 2mb L2 Cache
RAM: 2x2gb, 2x1gb DDR2 800mhz (PC6400) memory, totalling 6gb
Video: 256mb MSI NX8600-GTS OC (Nvidia 8600 GTS series)

When installing windows 7, it took about 2 or 3 hours. This was particularly a problem during the 'copying files', 'extracting files', and 'migrating settings' phases. Often times, it would get to about 14%, and stop there for up to 10-20 minutes, with zero progress being made during that time.

On bootup, it gets past the glowing windows logo part pretty quickly, but the 'welcome' screen is even slower than it was in Vista. Once I see my taskbar, it takes forever to actually be able to run anything because it's spending another 2-3 minutes trying to finish loading here. Chuggin' slowly. Once that's finally done, I get decent performance. I don't have anything running at startup other than poweriso, avg, and intel audio studio. The rest are stuff that windows provides automatically. Nothing unusual is running in the task manager process tree, either.

Now, Vista had similar problems when I -freshly- installed it, but not nearly as bad as this. The reason I upgraded instead of fresh installed, is because 64-bit windows installs have a major problem with my hardware. For some reason, 64-bit vista or windows 7 during a fresh install at bootup use up 100% of my CPU even when idle, even after the install is finished, and I must reboot after the slooooooow installation is complete to get normal performance. I'm aware this is a windows 7 board, not a vista board, but the problem persists into 7.

Is my system too weak for 64-bit? Or is this a problem with 64-bit 7 (and vista) with my hardware? Others I spoken to say their installations went smooth and quick, especially in comparison to mine.

 

[Moosetek13]

The only good way to test W7 is to install it to a separate hard drive, and a clean install.
Even better is to disconnect your main drive during the install of W7, so the Boot Manager is not involved.

 

[davehc]

Why do you not want the boot manager to be involved?
Your suggestion of discoonecting the main drive during installation, is extremely clumsy and uneccessary. Most comments, in a thread such as this, are comparing 7 to an earlier OS. To put 7 on another hard disk, with possible different specs, would alter the comparisons, however slightly.
Users have short, or unobservant, memories. The only way to achieve a really accurate comparison, would be by installing 7 and your legacy OS on identical computers. This is not a choice for the average user. What is nearly always a choice, is an installation on a separate partition, with the dual boot.
It is also required, something being constantly overlooked when performance comparisons are discussed in forums, is that both Os's are clean, or are customised, as much as possible, in precisely the same way, and have the same software installed.
It is ludicrous, to compare a fresh install of 7, (possibly on another hard disk or enviroment) with a seasoned legacy OS, with fully installed software.

 

[jandi]

I agree, I made a partition on my C drive and installed Win7 from within XP, no problems whatsoever, even my USB network card worked first time, I,ve had some problems in XP with that (still have).
Up till now, I've only had very few issues with Win7, I'm sure that when more drivers are made available, it will work like a charm.
My advice is, keep it simple, or! you could get lost in space

 

[jduncan]

I had exactly the same problem with a brand new Gigabyte MB. It was taking 5 minutes just to load the starting windows screen. I disabled my floppy (there was not one installed) and the problem was immediately solved!!

 

[Ppchkn]

same problem here around... 3 months.

the problem was a corrupt ISO image.

Downloaded the 7100 build, and this thing works great...

my advice? download another image, iso, or etc etc, and try a clean install, with a slow-burned-ISO

 

[Sync^]

Can confirm that disabling the floppy in the BIOS worked wonders in terms of speeding up the install, now all thats left is to get it past 'Expanding Windows Files', but hey it's got to 1% whilst I was typing =), Thanks for the tip!

Note: Windows 7 x32bit installed perfectly with the floppy enabled, but the x64bit version didn't, thought that was worth pointing out.

For referance purposes, system specs:

Motherboard: nVidia 650 SLi
GPU: nVidia 8800GT 512mb
CPU: Intel E6600 @ 2.4ghz
RAM: 6GB (2gb = crucial, 4gb = OCZ) (removed 4gb during install to avoid previous errors)
HDD: 1x 500gb WD Caviar, 1x 50gb Samsung

 

[william44]

Your computer might need to be restored to an earlier point of time. You may try System Restore, uninstalling most recent updates, disabling antivirus software and other techniques. Link Removed and check if that solves your problem. Manual solutions are provided below.

Run System File Checker:

1. Insert Windows installation disc.

2. Click Start, point to All Programs | Accessories.

3. Right click Command Prompt, select Run as administrator.

4. Type the following command and press ENTER:

SFC /SCANNOW

5. The program will scan for corrupt versions of the operating system files and replace them with original copies.


Clean Boot:

1. Click Start, select All Programs | Accessories | Run.

2. Type “MSCONFIG” (without quotes).

3. Click OK button.

4. Under General tab uncheck “Load startup items” checkbox.

5. Click Apply | OK.

6. Reboot your machine.

 

[helpifIcan]

You need to look at the date of this post this one is 3 years old!