Why Windows XP installation sucks.

This kind of rant has been done before, so I’ll just stick to the facts. My sister bought herself a new laptop, which, while not being the most prominent computing warehouse found this side of the hemisphere, is decently-spec’d. Core 2 Duo 1.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, etc. A very decent XP system.

Windows zealots claim Windows is “easier” (subjective: what the hell does “easier” even mean in this context?) to install for numerous reasons, but the simple fact of the matter is: it isn’t.

Total install time: 3 hours

Why? Let’s break it down:

Windows: ~45 minutes
Drivers: ~60 minutes
Windows updates: ~45 minutes
Miscellaenous essential applications: ~30 minutes

During this time period, I was asked to restart Windows approximately 17 times. The driver installation was the worst culprit for this as I had to install each device seperately (chipset, video, audio, trackpad, etc) and each installer was a different one that asked me to restart Windows. I installed Windows updates via WindizUpdate because I prefer my Windows without the Microsoft-sponsored trojans, and the essential applications I installed were AVG Anti-Virus, Spybot S&D, the bundled Powerlink DVD and Nero 7 Essentials, and Windows Media Player 11. Fair enough the overall time could’ve been reduced if the laptop had a faster hard drive, but the point is that I still had to click through about 17 seperate installation procedures.

All in all, I wouldn’t have bothered if it weren’t for the mediocre support of The Sims 2 by WINE and Cedega. I prefer my “install it all in one hit” Ubuntu disc that installs every conceivably useful application immediately as I instruct it to, updates the entire system at the click of a single button, and has avialable all drivers — open-source and proprietary — via a handy-dandy GUI tool.

Installing Windows is not a time-efficient exercise. End of story.

Edit: And I should mention, this is now productively useless install. At this point I still haven’t installed any office or productivity applications, which will of course require me to click through more stupid installation procedures and waste even more time.