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Use Caution when Upgrading
Written by Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director; APCUG Representative
This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups
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A few weeks ago I wrote a column about how to determine if your computer could be satisfactorily
upgraded to Windows 7. I mentioned Microsoft’s Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, and Windows 7
Compatibility Center, which should be run prior to any installation in order to determine hardware
and software compatibility with Windows 7. I ran both of those utilities on my three month old Vista
Home Premium 64 machine, and found that my hardware was compatible with Windows 7, and
that some of my software needed to be updated, which I did. Rerunning both Microsoft utilities
after making the recommended changes indicated that my computer hardware and software
should run on Windows 7, and that no listed incompatibilities remained. With peace of mind that I
should have no problems upgrading to Windows 7, I eagerly awaited the free upgrade discs that I
had ordered under Microsoft’s and my manufacturer’s “Free Upgrade to Windows 7” offer for
eligible computers.
A few days after Microsoft’s much promoted rollout of Windows 7, my upgrade discs arrived in the
mail. The envelope actually contained two DVDs, one the manufacturer’s “Upgrade Advisor”, the
other Microsoft’s “Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade” complete with hologram and product key.
Also in the envelope was a poster sized, multi-lingual, instruction sheet with detailed upgrade
instructions. Knowing from past experience on my older computers (XP to Vista), it may take
several hours to complete the upgrade I waited until the weekend when I might have the time to
dedicate to the upgrade.
One of my most frequently used computing expressions is “Backup! Backup!, and Backup!”. Prior
to installing Windows 7, I made a set of Vista recovery DVDs, and a redundant backup of all of my
critical data files. I can not understate the critical importance of this backup process, and that it is
absolutely imperative to have a good current backup. If you have the software and media to make
an image backup, which is a digital image of your entire hard drive that can be restored in the
event of catastrophic failure, do it. This could be very useful, as it can restore the operating
system, data, and all programs if necessary. The fact that I do have good backups may be my
savior. I was heartened by the fact that the computer magazines and blogs were heavy with stories
of successful upgrades and the high level of preliminary satisfaction that users had with their new
Windows 7 upgrades.
After ensuring that I had good backups, I then proceeded to follow the upgrade instructions
provided with my discs, and first ran the manufacturer’s “Upgrade Advisor”. It also ran the
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (no problems found), and installed some updated Windows 7 drivers
for the factory hardware. When completed, I was instructed to insert the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD.
The Windows 7 Upgrade DVD ran for a while and detected some factory installed software, mostly
games and a few obsolete Microsoft utilities, that I was instructed to uninstall. The computer then
rebooted back to my Vista Home Premium 64, and the list of items to uninstall appeared in a file
on my desktop. I used my Revo Uninstaller, and uninstalled those items being sure to do a
complete uninstall including any fragments and leftover registry entries.
I then restarted the computer and re-ran the Windows 7 Upgrade setup, as directed.
The computer ran for several hours, as I occasionally monitored its progress. There were no
difficulties or anomalies so far, and as things were now running smoothly, I felt assured that I would
shortly have the new Windows 7 Home Premium 64 installed on my computer. After running for
nearly six hours, and completing an indicated 72% of the upgrade process, a window popped up
which said that the install could not continue as my hard drive was full. That struck me as very odd,
and a sense of disbelief came over me, as I knew that I had well over 500 gigs of available hard
drive space prior to the upgrade! I was instructed by the upgrade software to restart my computer,
and that my Vista would then be restored. Other than the annoyance of wasting six hours of my life
on a failed upgrade, along with a modicum of disgust, I removed the Windows 7 DVD from the
drive, and rebooted the computer. This is when thing went terribly wrong.
During the reboot process, I was greeted with a black window with white print that offered two
options; repair Windows 7, or restore my Vista. I selected the restore option, and the computer
booted into Windows 7 (not Vista), and as it was loading a popup appeared that said, “The
computer restarted unexpectedly or encountered an unexpected error”, and instructed me to
reboot. I rebooted, selected the restore function, and the same popup error appeared. I rebooted
again, but this time selected the “Repair Windows 7” option, and the system loaded identically as
before. I selected a variety of the Windows 7 repair options, ran them, rebooted, and the same
error appeared. I put the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD in the drive, and ran the setup again, only to be
greeted with the same error at the same place in the process. I tried over a dozen permutations of
rebooting and selecting options, including a variety of repair options off of the Windows 7 repair
menu, but always had the same error when rebooting. This became an infinite loop. Despite
Microsoft’s claims that Vista would be restored if the upgrade failed, the system would not restore
my Vista, and the Windows 7 failed to install. Now I was left with a useless computer that would
not load anything. I did finally boot off of a Linux CD, and saw that my files all appeared to be
intact. With some difficulty, I was able to then boot off of my Spinrite CD, and did a thorough hard
drive check; my hard drive was intact and undamaged.
Next, with growing frustration approaching anger, I went online with my trusty old XP computer (the
same one that I am using to type this). I went to the Microsoft Windows 7 support forums, and
found that I was far from alone. The Windows 7 forum “Install, Upgrade, Activate” had over 6,000
threads, and almost 25,000 messages. One forum, “Windows 7 - Upgrade Unsuccessful -Reboot
Loop” had a post from Michael, a Microsoft support engineer. It says, “Hello,
For those who have attempted to perform an upgrade to Windows 7 and encounter a reboot loop,
Microsoft is aware of this issue and is currently being investigated.” It then provided a link to
another forum, but at least I had some assurance that Microsoft was aware of the problem with the
“Microsoft is aware of this issue” statement. That forum then linked to another forum, with the
same title “Windows 7 - Upgrade Unsuccessful -Reboot Loop”. That forum, which Microsoft
“locked” (closed to new posts) has dozens of posts similar to mine, where users are complaining
about the infinite loop reboot problem, and the failure to restore Vista. It appears that there may be
two distinct and different issues involving the loop problem. Several dozen of the posts all
indicated that their computer locked up at 62% of the install process, and many of them had
purchased the student upgrade to Windows 7, and downloaded the upgrade. For these unhappy
users, Microsoft has offered an updated download file for them to use to reinstall Windows 7. Many
other users, me included, had an authentic Microsoft Upgrade DVD which we used for the install,
and all of us encountered the same problem. Microsoft posted a few suggestions on possible fixes,
but from the user responses, these have not been successful. It was immaterial if the user was
updating a desktop computer like mine, or a laptop, the failure was the same. Some of the users
were so frustrated that they chose to do a full install, rather than an upgrade, which did indeed
work, but it wiped out all of their programs and data files which would have been preserved had
the upgrade install worked as promised. It is of little solace to me and thousands of other users
with crippled computers that the vast majority of those performing upgrades completed them
successfully. I guess that we were just the unlucky few.
It is not just the Vista Home Premium users that have encountered this problem, but users of other
editions as well. In the Microsoft forums “Vista x64 Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade failing”
an IT professional who was upgrading several computers encountered a similar problem with the
Ultimate upgrade.
Several of the computer magazines and independent support forums have had readers complain
with the identical issues, and inquiries to Microsoft have resulted in a “we are aware of the problem
and we are working to find a solution”. Some of the independent support boards also have
members trying to find a solution, but so far none have been found that can either restore our
computers to the way they were prior to the upgrade (Vista), or allow the Windows 7 upgrade to
complete.
The one saving grace is that I do have a Vista backup so I can be up and running again on my
newer computer, but according to the Microsoft forums, many users did not create a backup prior
to installing the Windows 7 Upgrade. Unless Microsoft comes up with a fix, these users will likely
lose all of their programs and files, and unsatisfactory outcome. Once again, this demonstrates
that it is absolutely imperative to have and maintain a contemporary backup of all critical data files,
and preferably an image backup which can restore the computer to an earlier state complete with
all programs and files.
Most users who have installed the upgrade editions of Windows 7 to compatible computers had
great success, but for the few, maybe thousands, of us who had a catastrophic failure during the
upgrade process, we are not happy campers. Can I recommend the Windows 7 Upgrade to users
with compatible computers? Generally yes, as the benefits of Windows 7 appear to outweigh the
foibles of Vista, but I will only make that recommendation with one proviso; be absolutely certain to
have a good backup before attempting the upgrade. I am thankful that I have a good backup. If
someone wants to do a clean install, meaning that they are installing Windows 7 to an empty or
reformatted hard drive that is fine, as there have been very few problems with a clean install
reported in the forums.
I will continue to monitor the Microsoft support forums hoping for a satisfactory resolution of this
problem. In the meantime, remember, “Backup! Backup!, Backup!”
The Random Access newsletter is a Publication of “The Computer Users Group of Greeley, Colorado” USA
This page is all about: Computer Operating Systems .. Software .. Tips & Tricks
Tip of the Day
“Your Windows 7
Questions Answered”
Submitted by:
CUGG Member
Sharon Stobar
This site is also a favorite of
Jim Conant
CUGG Program Director
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