As I mentioned earlier, Windows Server 2008 recently was recently released to manufacturing (RTM). Initially only the x64 version of Windows Server 2008 was available for download on Technet but yesterday, the x86 versions also became available. So like I said, I downloaded and installed it. The installation completed in under 10 minutes. Actually, it might have been as short as 7-8 minutes (I wasn't monitoring all the time). The install yielded a default Windows Server 2008 installation that takes up about 7GB.

Let me be more specific about what I tested. I downloaded the Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter Edition DVD (combined DVD image ).I installed the Windows Server 2008 Standard edition from this DVD into my virtual environment. I used VMware Workstation 6.0.0 (not the latest version). Obviously I mounted the ISO rather than using a physical DVD so that will have impacted the install time. One the other hand, it is not uncommon these days to install Servers using ISO images.

What probably also played a part was my hardware setup. I do not have the luxury of setting up a dedicated lab environment so my lab machine also doubles as my game/multimedia machine. These are the some of the relevant HW specs of my lab machine (nothing special outside of the HDDs)

• Intel Core2 Duo Processor E6400 (2.13GHz,2MB Cache,1066MHz FSB)
• 4GB DDR2 667 ECC Dual Channel Memory (4x1GB)
  
• 4 Western Digital "Raptor" Harddisks 160 GB -  1.5 Gb/s - 16 MB Cache - 10,000 RPM (like this one - they do not come cheap but they deliver the best price/performance ratio)

The install time of less than 10 minutes is significantly faster than the install time of Windows Server 2003. I have not timed the exact difference but I'm pretty sure it takes a lot longer. The decrease in install time is mostly due to the WIM image technology that Microsoft introduced in Windows Vista. The fact that the Windows Server 2008 installation is "image based" explains the speed increase. In stead of copying over all the different files from the installation disk which happened in all versions of Windows prior to Windows Vista (so also in Windows Server 2003), Windows server 2008 just copies over the appropriate WIM image (in this case Windows Server 2008 Standard edition) and will then decompress this image. The ever-increasing speed of modern CPUs only will increase the install speed.

Let me be the first to acknowledge that this "benchmark" is by no means thorough enough to take to your customers or something like that. It also does not tell you anything about the speed of Windows Server 2008 when it's finished installing. With this post I just wanted to share with you that I was really impressed with the install speed of Windows Server 2008. And although my testing methods are far from statistically correct I'm sure that this install speed increase I've seen will apply to all installation one way or the other. There is just one thing that is bothering me. When in finished installing my Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition RTM build server, I ran winver and it came up with this Window(s) .....

Now what's wrong with that picture?