A
Adam Albright
Ok, finally success in installing Vista in place on a PC with nearly 2
TB's of files, which is the main reason I didn't do a clean install.
The first few paragraphs will document what went wrong and why, and
hopefully help others who have yet to venture down this for sure bumpy
path.
First, Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor is misleading. For me, it
said nothing was wrong, safe to install Vista. It nagged about three
things, not surprising, two Microsoft applications, MSN Explorer and
Windows Messenger 5 which it said may cause problems, so far they
haven't. At least they didn't interfer with the install process.
Hardware was another story and a royal pain. While the Upgrade Advisor
said it didn't have issues, the reality was while it simply said a
couple devices may have "minor" issues, these in fact caused the
dreaded Blue Screen of Death about a third of way through the install
process generating a 7B stop order.
One advantage of doing a in place upgrade (leaving your old files and
XP or whatever was your old operating system you had) is you can,
depending how far along you get, go back, and not get left up the
creek without a paddle. This allowed me with some effort to find out
what was wrong and fix it, then try again to install.
Not always, but almost, if you get a BSOD and a 7B it either means
their is a boot sector virus or Windows don't like one or more device
drivers. Doing a web search I found lots of people having similar 7B
stops during the install of Vista. Most said the issue was resolved by
installing new SATA Controller drivers. Usually, these can be found on
your mother board vendor's site. GET THEM BEFORE you try to install
Vista. Depending on who's board, you may or may not be able to install
prior. The version I needed, just released a few days ago, support
both Vista and XP, so that made things easier.
Before going further if you fancy yourself a "power user" and I do,
and you also have a hot MB you tweaked and overclocked, I did, then do
yourself a favor and before attempting to install Vista, go to BIOS
and turn off all the bells and whistles. No RAID, no audio, no UBS, no
SATA (unless you need it to boot from a SATA drive) no overclocking,
you know the drill. Then be sure you can still boot and run normally
into XP.
Now if your going to do a in place install, (copy over your exhisting
version of Windows) do some house cleaning and of course move critical
files or copies of same off the root drive or whatever drive you'll be
installing Vista on. PLEASE! It takes time, sure, but if you don't and
something bad happens, you'll kick youself if you didn't.
Next do a defrag. Again it takes time, but worth it.
Ok, now what hung me up; two common drivers.
1. CMS Perpherals (Bounce Back software)
this comes with external Seagate drives and Vista don't like the
driver. So disable from Device Manger before you begin. You can
turn on again later, I haven't tested it yet to see if it works
under Vista.
2. Gigabyte GBB36X Controller.
This a fairly common on mother boards. I found no way to disable,
so I unistalled for now.
If you've made previous attempts to install Vista and got a stop order
or something prevented you from finishing and if you can get back into
your old version of Windows (Vista puts up some a dual boot menu
during install and even adds choices to it during install) if you do a
in place install, that is how you get back, but you got to be fast,
you have 5 seconds, so watch for the choice and use the up arrow
button on your keyboard and keep your fingers crossed.
Now, IMPORTANT... look on your root drive or wherever you told Windows
to install to and check for files that weren't there before. I found
three, all starting with a $ sign. This is Vista in limbo. RENAME
THEM, but simply putting a X in front of each.
Now can put the Vista DVD in your drive and try again to install. It
took me 56 minutes to finish, but it did.
Now for some comments on the install process. It is crude. More so,
there for earlier versions of Windows, which is a sure sign Vista was
rushed out the door.
Very early on in the install process as Windows is checking your
system again, this time for real, unlike the Advisor which seems to do
a bad job of faking it, it reports problems. Same as I mentioned above
for me, only this time instead of saying they are minor it gives a
more ominous warning these "could" case problems during the install.
I mumbled a few choices words under my breath, but was given no option
to bail out, you're already committed to installing Vista at this
point unless you do the unthinkable and just turn your system off.
Don't! Just cross your fingers.
During the install process for me, Vista rebooted itself seven times.
Your mileage may vary. That's in itself is a very minor issue, but is
a little scary, especially if you're not use to installing Windows and
are a little afraid of the install process, Vista does no hand
holding. In fact it can be down right scary to you a couple times. The
screen goes black, no warning, seconds tick by, nothing seems to be
happening. You'll swear it acts and looks like it is hung up, but it
isn't, so wait and do not press any keys! Just wait and hope.
This happened three seperate times for me. It shows a progress bar,
then flash totally black screen. The first time at 21%, the screen
just goes black. No warning. It is just rebooting, but unlike earlier
versions of Windows it gives you no warning at all its going to do
that. For some reason only known to Microsoft the early phase of the
install it uses whatever resolution you had. Again, no warning, screen
goes dark, and obviously the resolution is much lower. Again, no
warning, right in the middle of showing a progress bar, screen goes
black again, then you're back into your resolution again.
About those install process bars... they are way off. For me it was
creeping along until about 21%, then it flew in a just a few second to
almost 50%, then slowed, down, slower, and slower, then sped up again.
It stopped all together at 86% and again, rebooted. So don't put much
faith in how far along you are by just watching the progress bar.
The inital phase of the install goes smooth. Fairly quickly you get
check marks for copying Windows files, and another for Gathering
files. Then while expanding files, the screen goes dark, seems to have
hung, but it didn't. After it happens several times you get use to it.
Finally you get to the famous install Windows for the first time
screen. You hold your breath... seconds tick by, wow! Ok, that's a
major step. Some more housecleaning, a couple more reboots and then
the big shock, for the first time you see a pretty cool multicolor
screen and literraly nothing on it. No cursor, no icons, no text,
absolutely nothing and Vista just sits there. I look at the clock. a
whole minute goes by, then two, almost three, bingo, it reboot again.
Then finally have about a hour you see what you've been wating for,
the vew Vista 3D (if you have the right graphics card) and it is
impressive.
Now to restore (hopefully) my system to what it was and hope Windows
don't choke on all the things I had to turn off to get Vista to
install
TB's of files, which is the main reason I didn't do a clean install.
The first few paragraphs will document what went wrong and why, and
hopefully help others who have yet to venture down this for sure bumpy
path.
First, Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor is misleading. For me, it
said nothing was wrong, safe to install Vista. It nagged about three
things, not surprising, two Microsoft applications, MSN Explorer and
Windows Messenger 5 which it said may cause problems, so far they
haven't. At least they didn't interfer with the install process.
Hardware was another story and a royal pain. While the Upgrade Advisor
said it didn't have issues, the reality was while it simply said a
couple devices may have "minor" issues, these in fact caused the
dreaded Blue Screen of Death about a third of way through the install
process generating a 7B stop order.
One advantage of doing a in place upgrade (leaving your old files and
XP or whatever was your old operating system you had) is you can,
depending how far along you get, go back, and not get left up the
creek without a paddle. This allowed me with some effort to find out
what was wrong and fix it, then try again to install.
Not always, but almost, if you get a BSOD and a 7B it either means
their is a boot sector virus or Windows don't like one or more device
drivers. Doing a web search I found lots of people having similar 7B
stops during the install of Vista. Most said the issue was resolved by
installing new SATA Controller drivers. Usually, these can be found on
your mother board vendor's site. GET THEM BEFORE you try to install
Vista. Depending on who's board, you may or may not be able to install
prior. The version I needed, just released a few days ago, support
both Vista and XP, so that made things easier.
Before going further if you fancy yourself a "power user" and I do,
and you also have a hot MB you tweaked and overclocked, I did, then do
yourself a favor and before attempting to install Vista, go to BIOS
and turn off all the bells and whistles. No RAID, no audio, no UBS, no
SATA (unless you need it to boot from a SATA drive) no overclocking,
you know the drill. Then be sure you can still boot and run normally
into XP.
Now if your going to do a in place install, (copy over your exhisting
version of Windows) do some house cleaning and of course move critical
files or copies of same off the root drive or whatever drive you'll be
installing Vista on. PLEASE! It takes time, sure, but if you don't and
something bad happens, you'll kick youself if you didn't.
Next do a defrag. Again it takes time, but worth it.
Ok, now what hung me up; two common drivers.
1. CMS Perpherals (Bounce Back software)
this comes with external Seagate drives and Vista don't like the
driver. So disable from Device Manger before you begin. You can
turn on again later, I haven't tested it yet to see if it works
under Vista.
2. Gigabyte GBB36X Controller.
This a fairly common on mother boards. I found no way to disable,
so I unistalled for now.
If you've made previous attempts to install Vista and got a stop order
or something prevented you from finishing and if you can get back into
your old version of Windows (Vista puts up some a dual boot menu
during install and even adds choices to it during install) if you do a
in place install, that is how you get back, but you got to be fast,
you have 5 seconds, so watch for the choice and use the up arrow
button on your keyboard and keep your fingers crossed.
Now, IMPORTANT... look on your root drive or wherever you told Windows
to install to and check for files that weren't there before. I found
three, all starting with a $ sign. This is Vista in limbo. RENAME
THEM, but simply putting a X in front of each.
Now can put the Vista DVD in your drive and try again to install. It
took me 56 minutes to finish, but it did.
Now for some comments on the install process. It is crude. More so,
there for earlier versions of Windows, which is a sure sign Vista was
rushed out the door.
Very early on in the install process as Windows is checking your
system again, this time for real, unlike the Advisor which seems to do
a bad job of faking it, it reports problems. Same as I mentioned above
for me, only this time instead of saying they are minor it gives a
more ominous warning these "could" case problems during the install.
I mumbled a few choices words under my breath, but was given no option
to bail out, you're already committed to installing Vista at this
point unless you do the unthinkable and just turn your system off.
Don't! Just cross your fingers.
During the install process for me, Vista rebooted itself seven times.
Your mileage may vary. That's in itself is a very minor issue, but is
a little scary, especially if you're not use to installing Windows and
are a little afraid of the install process, Vista does no hand
holding. In fact it can be down right scary to you a couple times. The
screen goes black, no warning, seconds tick by, nothing seems to be
happening. You'll swear it acts and looks like it is hung up, but it
isn't, so wait and do not press any keys! Just wait and hope.
This happened three seperate times for me. It shows a progress bar,
then flash totally black screen. The first time at 21%, the screen
just goes black. No warning. It is just rebooting, but unlike earlier
versions of Windows it gives you no warning at all its going to do
that. For some reason only known to Microsoft the early phase of the
install it uses whatever resolution you had. Again, no warning, screen
goes dark, and obviously the resolution is much lower. Again, no
warning, right in the middle of showing a progress bar, screen goes
black again, then you're back into your resolution again.
About those install process bars... they are way off. For me it was
creeping along until about 21%, then it flew in a just a few second to
almost 50%, then slowed, down, slower, and slower, then sped up again.
It stopped all together at 86% and again, rebooted. So don't put much
faith in how far along you are by just watching the progress bar.
The inital phase of the install goes smooth. Fairly quickly you get
check marks for copying Windows files, and another for Gathering
files. Then while expanding files, the screen goes dark, seems to have
hung, but it didn't. After it happens several times you get use to it.
Finally you get to the famous install Windows for the first time
screen. You hold your breath... seconds tick by, wow! Ok, that's a
major step. Some more housecleaning, a couple more reboots and then
the big shock, for the first time you see a pretty cool multicolor
screen and literraly nothing on it. No cursor, no icons, no text,
absolutely nothing and Vista just sits there. I look at the clock. a
whole minute goes by, then two, almost three, bingo, it reboot again.
Then finally have about a hour you see what you've been wating for,
the vew Vista 3D (if you have the right graphics card) and it is
impressive.
Now to restore (hopefully) my system to what it was and hope Windows
don't choke on all the things I had to turn off to get Vista to
install