Faster to install Windows from USB stick or DVD/CD?

Jimbo Mahoney

Jimbo Mahoney

Jimbo Mahoney

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Apologies if this has been asked before (I did search, but no results).

Is it faster to install Windows (Vista, 7, XP, whatever) from a USB 2.0 memory stick or from the CD/DVD?

I've tried a bit of Googling too, but no clear consensus, plus most hits are just about how to do it, rather than speed comparisons.

One guy reported 14 mins (USB) vs 30 mins (DVD), which is pretty sweet.

Any experiences?

Thanks.
 
Tried installation from a usb for the first time a couple of nights ago, was definately a lot faster than from a dvd, and this was from a cheap usb stick. Just have to make the usb bootable, xcopy the dvd to your usb, then choose to boot from the usb when booting.
 
If the BIOS can support USB booting, definitely do it like that. This guide might help you configure the drive correctly. Note the guide only works when been done from Vista or Windows 7.
 
Guest2 said:
interesting. do you just need to copy all the files from cd - usb or do you put the image on the usb stick?
Click to expand...
Just mount the image and copy the files after using diskpart make the USB stick bootable, as detailed in alexhull24's link.
 
As a one off I would say this isn't worth the bother.

The write speeds of most generic USB sticks aren't very good, so by the time you have copied the installation media to the USB stick, it would have been just/almost as quick booting from the DVD in the first place.

Obviously this would change if you are doing a roll out on multiple PC's from the same stick :)
 
Done the bootable USB key method and deleted the ei.cfg file to allow version choice from one set of files. Pretty decent Sandisk key as well.

On a Phenom II X4 955 BE with 8gb, it took 2-3 minutes just to do the pre-setup prep prior to the drive prepartion tool. Was a good 20 minutes after that for usable desktop.

On a Dell Inspiron 1545 with 3gb and a dual core Pentium, it was installed and at a usable desktop in around 9 minutes.

DVD install by comparison was about 5-7 minutes quicker than USB on the Phenom and about 5 minutes slower than USB.

USB method's more convenient though and I'm not that bothered about the extra time either.
 
undergroove said:
Done the bootable USB key method and deleted the ei.cfg file to allow version choice from one set of files. Pretty decent Sandisk key as well.

On a Phenom II X4 955 BE with 8gb, it took 2-3 minutes just to do the pre-setup prep prior to the drive prepartion tool. Was a good 20 minutes after that for usable desktop.

On a Dell Inspiron 1545 with 3gb and a dual core Pentium, it was installed and at a usable desktop in around 9 minutes.

DVD install by comparison was about 5-7 minutes quicker than USB on the Phenom and about 5 minutes slower than USB.

USB method's more convenient though and I'm not that bothered about the extra time either.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. Why the big difference between machines?
 
I find it faster from USB.

This is how I prep the USB

- Get a 4GB USB Drive and plug it in under Vista (i don’t think XP has diskpart)

- Click Start –> type CMD and right click Run as Admin

- Inside cmd, type and enter the followings:

1. diskpart
2. type “list disk” and you will see all connected disks and numbers
3. select disk X (X being the number of the usb disk )
4. clean
5. create partition primary
6. select partition 1
7. active
8. format fs=fat32
9. assign
10. exit
- Open your drive under explorer, copy all files from vista/7 iso to the usb drive.

- in Bios, set to boot from USB and have fun.
 
Given the increasing number of netbooks and servers lacking optical drives, I'm surprised Microsoft haven't produced a tool to create bootable USB drives from the install DVD. It's pretty trival to create a straightforward single image drive, after all.

If you have a USB hard disk drive you can use the method mr_x_plosion describes to create multiple partitions with different versions of the Windows installer in it. For example, you could have Vista in partition 1, 7 in partition 2, Server 2k8 in partition 3 and Server 2k8 R2 in the final partition. You can then use a bootloader such as grub4dos to select which partition you want to boot from, thus allowing you to install whichever version of Windows you need to all from a single source. It's even possible to put XP and 2k3 in there if you're willing to spend a few hours setting it up.

Sure beats carrying a bunch of DVDs or USB flash drives around :)
 
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Jimbo Mahoney said:
That's interesting. Why the big difference between machines?
Click to expand...

Had me scratching my head. The only thing I can think is that the 8gb in the Phenom is causing the issue, although I haven't a clue why.... the Phenom's running a Velociraptor and otherwise goes like greased lightning. Got me really puzzled. Maybe it's caching a load of data first in memory before kicking off the install proper.
 
I just extracted the ISO to the root of a USB hard disk and it booted from it fine, lots of other junk on the drive too. Way faster than the DVD because my netbook has no drive.
 
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