The actual installation of the OS didn’t take that long. I’ve installed well over 200 updates though, all of them dropping through Windows update. It got to like update number 167 of 186 of the last batch, which is apparently IE 11, and choked. It’s a 4 year old HP, 3GHz AMD 8 GB RAM, nothing special. But still, Jesus Christ. And for some reason the updates download slow as shit through WU.
Somethings wrong. Maybe a congested internet connection? It shouldn’t take nearly this long. 45 mins to an hour at most to get all the win updates. Depends on which service pack your install disk has.
Look on the taskbar for a program installing icon. Some “updates” are in fact program installs (like MSE) that pop up an install screen that waits for user input but is underneath the update window.
No, nothing’s wrong. This is par for the course when reinstalling from an original (no service pack) Windows disk.
This is really one thing I’ve long wished Microsoft would do something about. At least on the Mac, Apple releases periodic “point” updates which roll up all of the previous updates into one installer. You install e.g. 10.6.0, the all you need to do is install the 10.6.8 combo update and you’re at 10.6.8.
You can download the ISO of Windows 7 including SP1; it’s easy to find a legit source. Here, for instance. Then it’s a simple matter to burn it to a disk or USB.