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I create my setup.exe's using Burn, and my whatever.msi's using Candle (WiX). I test them on clean virtual machines (Hyper-V, Server 2012, regular 7200 RPM physical disk, differencing "auto-expanding" virtual disk). What I've noticed is that each install takes about an hour on the virtual machine.

But then, I installed it on a real physical machine/real physical hard drive, and it only took a few minutes.

Why is it 10 times slower to install on the virtual machine? Could I be doing something wrong with my VM setup?

user2313654
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1 Answers1

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It is all related to I/O performance on your disks.

When you are installing something, there will be system restore-points created, lots temporary files written, backup files for rollbacks and log files.

to speedup, you could try - to disable the system-restore. - to maximize the cache e.g. add more ram to host. - to get 10k rpm drives/sdd's and/or use (hardware-)raid

never forget, when you are using a single disk, the i/o is shared between host and vm's.

coding Bott
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  • Thanks, all good suggestions! I've taken care to only have a single install running at a time on all real/virtual machines, and to have the VM as consistent as possible when compared to the real OS with a real disk. I'm still not sure what part of the "VM/differencing/autoexpanding disk" bundle is causing the super-added slowdown. – user2313654 Jul 24 '13 at 17:44