Why are Windows updates so slow (and long) with VISTA

Hi bornival,

My post was directed towards Shear Genius. In his case, it is better for him to start a new thread and provide specific details about his issue. Although his issue may appear the same as your, there are many other factors that can make the issue slightly different.

Perhaps if an actual answer was provided as to what the cause for the issue is, others would not feel a need to chime in with their own version of the problem. A solid, definitive response could easily quell such confusion.

Vista is Painfully Slow with updating, I have been working on updating for 7hrs after a fresh reinstall. I still have 20 more updates. Microsoft please answer the question of the original poster and come up with a resolution.

Thank you for your input.

I guess you made the point clear that they are TWO problems:

• one is related to the update site of Microsoft.  Although they apparently deny it, it is clear to me and many others that the site works much more slowly for Vista than it does for XP or Win7
• the second is related to the less efficient way Vista handle its own check for update compared to XP (this has been clearly mentioned in one of the replies, although it was said to be due to en "improved" method).  This, as many other problems that made Vista slow , has been corrected with Win7. 

Neither of these two problems have been acknowledged by Microsoft but they seem obvious at least to me.

Conclusion: drop Vista and either go back to XP or upgrade to Win7.

I personally have mixed opinions over this. I originally Installed Vista on an older Dell D530 with a 1.8GHz Sempron and 1gb of ddr2 667. The updates didn't take long to download on my 30mbps connection in my dorm, but the installs would take almost an hour on average. Not too long before 7 came out I upgraded that same laptop to a 1.8ghz dual core AMD Turion and 3gb of ddr2 800. Vista "Drastically" improved. Which makes me wonder.. If the problems only occur on Underpowered Machines.

I eventually upgraded to 7 on that laptop and it ran better then Vista.. In every single category.

I now have 7 Ultimate running on my newer Dell 17R... It feel like how old XP machines with 2gb of Ram felt.. Fantastic!!!

just to confirm this... a friend asked me to restore his computer that had vista recovery partition, and what a painfull process... the updates just take hours sometimes... i took me a whole weekend to do something that i would have done in 2 hours with windows 7...