The few Snow Leopard upgrades I’ve done took about the same. I don’t know what you can possibly doing wrong so I’d have to say your “experience” must be a fabrication. Both the XP and Leopard fresh installs required several rounds of updates before you could use the machine. The Mac was ready to use way sooner than the Windows boxes. Part of the problem is XP was long in the tooth and needed many more updates than Windows 7 or Snow Leopard – which have relatively few updates… so far.

Windows 7 installs easily as a clean install. You’re right about that. Very nice as well once it’s working. Reminds me a little too much of OS X but is still vague, rigid, needy, arbitrary and abstract in many ways.

Doing a Windows 7 upgrade on an existing system and expecting it to work is much more difficult. Having done two of those upgrades, which is all I can stand, I strongly agree with Robert about his general time frame. Maybe it’s familiarity, but I don’t think it is.

I showed my pure Windows guy how to upgrade Macs to help me and he was blown away by the simplicity and ease of installations. So much that he bought his own Mac having never even touched one before. Nothing painful about it and he found the “conventional wisdom” about Macs amongst PC users was horribly outdated.

And, puleeez, saying the Windows machine is a MUCH more powerful computer hasn’t been true for quite some time. Next up, “there’s no software for the Mac”… everyone chuckles about that now. I now run Windows in emulation on my Macs and they’re faster than a similarly outfitted native PC. I don’t know why but the 8-core 3.2 GHz Xeon Mac Pro running Windows under Parallels regularly smokes the 8-core 3.16 GHz Xeon PC in renders and compressions by about 30%.

Basically, there’s no real reason to buy plain PCs now except initial cost or limited functionality (meaning a task specific installation or no-frills consumer browsing). If your time is worth nothing or you like fixing things for a hobby, PCs are cheaper if you buy the junkyard class systems. If you just want something that works right, use a Mac. If you want to play games, get an Xbox or Playstation.

I have this theory that every second version of windows is ALWAYS rubbish, going back to almost the start of windows.

Windows 3.0 is the first I remember, and it wasn’t very special – didn’t make me want to leave DOS land.

Then Windows 3.1 came out – it was way more stable, better features, basically a whole new version.

Windows 3.11 – a minor release that was a waste of time. Back in those days there wasn’t service packs, so they had to release a whole new version!

Windows 95 – Awesome – changed computing – few would disagree.

Windows 98 (the origional one) – Rubbish. Unstable as all hell. A downgrade from 98.

Windows 98 SE – More than a service pack a whole new addition – windows 98 with the stability module installed!

Windows ME – oops someone took out the stablity module. Rubbish.

Windows XP – Awesome OS right from the start. Lots of service packs, not going to count them as seperate as they are dime a dozen now.

Windows Vista – Rubbish again (see the trend)

So – Windows 7 MUST be good – it’s due for it!

Well, yes. First upgrade: The key was that, as an upgrade from WinXP to Win7, it was not an “in place upgrade’ but a “fresh install upgrade”. Fresh installs are preferable for a lot of reasons, IMO, but the speed of upgrade was key. Oh, I guess if I counted the time it took to run Windows Easy Transfer and save all the computer’s data and settings to an external drive, it would run the time up, but WET just trundled along while I was away doing other things the day before I performed the “upgrade”, so I really didn’t even time that portion of the upgrade process.

The upgrade _counting_ the restoration of data and settings and reinstallation of software took about two hours, with reinstalling the software taking up the majority of that time.

Big deal.

Folks who do an in place upgrade (inheriting all the problems and glurge of the previous installation) get what they deserve, IMO. A fresh installation with data migration is elegant, clean, and in the first case I attempted it with Win7, completely trouble free. Which is why I have continued to use that process on later computers.

Windows Easy Transfer has finally set to rest the bad old days of files and settings transfer from one computer to another or for a fresh install “upgrade” IMO. Of course, the fresh (called “Custom” by the Win7 installer) install _also_ creates a win.old folder with the entirety of the old installation backed up, but it is (has been so far) unnecessary and easily nuked when nothing critical emerges after a couple of weeks.

Fresh install “upgrades”: recommended.

Based on previous releases, I’d expect anywhere from 10 to 50%+ off retail, depending on volume. Further discounts for non-profits, educational, government, etc.

There’s the $29.99 Win7 for students deal, free copies at Launch Events, free copies to beta testers, and free copies to OEM purchasers of Vista since June. These will all be used in “upgrade” scenarios (if not strict upgrades).

The reason new PCs have lower support costs is mainly because OEMs are required to support OEM copies – not MS. This has been the policy since at least Win98.

So, no, I don’t think MS is punishing upgraders – $120 is probably a fair deal to home users. Apple just charges for each incremental upgrade, which means it’s $40 * 4 instead.