It should take about 1.5 to 2 hours in total, and yes, it may seem to get stuck around 3/4 of the way through installation (and also when the progress bar is 100% filled), but it isn't.
A typical windows 7 install takes about 1/2 hour (less in my case). Dont see how an SP should take any longer. I recall Vistas SP2 took only about 10-15 min. Something is not right if 7 SP takes more than 1/2 hour, or it may be old hardware, very slow PC.
A fresh install of Windows is less complex. Have you ever tried an in-place Windows 7 upgrade? That can take more than an hour, and it's functionally closer to a service pack installation.
Mine took over an hour to update. If you would like to clean up after the install do this>> How to cleanup old hot fix information after installing SP1 (cleanup tool) Once Service Pack 1 is installed you may opt to remove old information regarding old hot fixes and the SP1 un-installation tool as well. Note that if you perform this step you can NEVER remove SP1! On most systems you should expect between 500MB and 1.5GB of space recovered by running this program. To run you must launch a command prompt with Administrator privileges, then execute the following command: dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded This command will take between 5 and 15 minutes to complete, when completed you will now have SP1 fully integrated with no un-installation option. Enjoy the reclaimed disk space!
you can right click the drive in my computer and select "properties" then "disc cleanup" and click "clean up system files" and you get the option to remove "service pack backup files" that's around 500mb also, perhaps they are the same thing, I've left mine till this build is confirmed by MS as final.
Although I'm pretty sure that we have the RTM build, and Microsoft's lack of confirmation of the build string is FUD, it would be wise to hold on to the service pack backup files for a few weeks (or months at most). Do you really need 1GB of extra space this moment? Probably not - hold onto the files. Do you have the patience to re-install Windows, if this is not the final RTM build? Well then, go ahead and remove the files...