Windows 7 Upgrade Makes Some PCs Unusable
Some PCs are stuck in an infinite PC reboot loop following Windows 7 upgrade attempt.
As is standard M.O. with any new version of Windows, a clean install is best. But clean installs are time consuming as they'd require back ups and reformats and installs and reinstalls and configurations. For some, just doing an upgrade is the preferred way.
Supposedly, the upgrade from Windows Vista to 7 is the most straightforward yet, thanks to the similarity in underlying software. Unfortunately, some users are finding out that the upgrade to Windows 7 could have disastrous, crippling effects.
Participants in a Microsoft support forum are now posting in a thread titled, "Windows 7 - Install Message - Upgrade Unsuccessful." The first poster detailed his or her problem:
"Hello, I purchased Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit. I am attempting to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit. On the last step of the upgrade (transferring files/programs/etc), my laptop rebooted and came to a screen telling me the upgrade was unsuccessful and my previous OS files would now be restored. My laptop is now in what seems to be a loop of restarting and trying to restore the files.
"Each copy of Windows I have are genuine (not pirated or anything), and I ran the Windows 7 Upgrade Compatibility Advisor and received no warnings from it before attempting to upgrade. My laptop meets the minimum requirements for upgrade."
Now other users are reporting the same type of problem, though there hasn't yet been a commonality other than trying to upgrade. Some users are upgrading using retail, pressed media, while others are using the installer files from Digital River's $29 student offer.
So far the problem only seems to affect a very small number of users, but Microsoft still has yet to find a solution. One Microsoft support engineer suggested to those who had to burn their own discs from images to use the slowest write speed as possible to avoid corruption.
Have you been having any problems upgrading from Vista?

Mike: "shit..."
Mike: "shit..."
On another note Microsoft's 64bit upgrades from Digital River require a 64 bit OS already in place to unpack. Minus one for Microsoft for forgetting to tell everyone.
The fact is, that even with the problem in place, the software and documents can still be recovered. Unfortunately, for my fellow mac users who upgraded to snow leopard and lost their documents and software to the mac upgrade bug (that deletes files and user information), im sorry, but hey atleast they have patch so you dont loose all your data twice
Sad to say, I had the same thoughts.
As a rule I never upgrade I do clean installs, I have had luck in the past but after some time I would just wipe out the system and do a clean install. Each time I have done a clean install VS an upgrade I noticed that the clean install ran faster then the upgrade. (not hard evidence but my perception is important to me lol)
If some one has a problem doing an upgrade hopefully some one did a backed up before they did the upgrade like they should have anyway.
2 important lessons.
1. Back up your stuff, especially if your doing something massive like say hmmm an OS upgrade.
2. Do a clean install then if you did #1 like you should have then happiness will be yours, with all your files and a fresh new OS whats not to like
People that just have 1 partition for the 2-8 year life of their PC, cram it with junk, and expect to just "upgrade" to a new PC without any issues?
C'mon.
Just because he pointed it out doesn't mean it's not happening. And from all accounts, it's happening.
Yep, same here
The same issue occurs across OS's (yes even Mac and Linux similar reports exist going from Tiger to Leopard), upgrades do not always go smoothly as it is impossible to test every possible file change that could have occurred. If you don't backup your data religiously you will lose it, if not today then at some point down the road.
Not being paid enough to figure out the problem, I managed to revive the recovery partition (Windows 7 had removed the boot entry for it, but hadn't deleted it thankfully) and restored Windows Vista.
The client wasn't interested in the operating system on the machine, they simply requested that I "fix it"
It seems the upgrade attempt was performed by the client's son in an attempt to "fix" the machine which was plagued with slow startup time and a healthy dose of unnecessary applications running. I don't have any details about the 7 install that was used, but it seems that it wasn't a retail copy.
This would have been a perfect candidate for one of those Clean Installs that Microsoft recommends, but for some odd reason, the contents of the My Documents folder was deemed too valuable to simply copy to a flash drive while the system was upgraded.
I'd be very curious to know more of the specifics about this problem. The machine I had worked on was running a 32bit version of Vista Home Premium, OEM Gateway.
EXACTLY! That's what I tell every one who's upgrading an OS.
The problem is 75% of the people don't have back ups of their stuff, so backing up that takes quite a while for those idiots.
Off topic: Any one who lost data and didn't have back ups because they didn't back up, they deserved it.