albeit at a glacial pace

Yeah. The "Express" setup is a bit of a misnomer. The install from CD actually tends to be faster, but I'm not sure why. I reinstalled my laptop last week, and it took me the best part of a day just to get Windows XP installed and patched.

Either way, it's probably got a shedload of stuff to install, so it's going to take some time. I'd go and get a coffee, if I were you.