Vista Anytime Upgrade -- 36 Hrs +

[Er]

Hi,

I purchased an HP Pavillion with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. The
Are You Vista Ready Utility approved my computer with flying colours.
Then I purchased the Vista Anytime Upgrade for Vista Ultimate and got
the DVD in the mail. I inserted it, ran the "Upgrade" and now the
upgrade process has been stuck on "Completing Upgrade..." for over 24
Hrs now. Still the little dots are moving beside it and the hard drive
seems to be doing something every second or so.

Should I abort, roll back the install and try again, or should I wait
for another day or so? If so, what could be holding up the install?
The Home Premium version ran just beautifully, and I hadn't installed
any additional software.

Could I abort the install and perform a "clean install"? Does the
Upgrade Anytime DVD allow a clean install?

How long is this upgrade process supposed to last?

Is there a log file somewhere that I can check after to see what went
wrong?

Thanks,

Erwin

 

[Michael Solomon]

Hi,

I purchased an HP Pavillion with Vista Home Premium pre-installed. The
Are You Vista Ready Utility approved my computer with flying colours.
Then I purchased the Vista Anytime Upgrade for Vista Ultimate and got
the DVD in the mail. I inserted it, ran the "Upgrade" and now the
upgrade process has been stuck on "Completing Upgrade..." for over 24
Hrs now. Still the little dots are moving beside it and the hard drive
seems to be doing something every second or so.

Should I abort, roll back the install and try again, or should I wait
for another day or so? If so, what could be holding up the install?
The Home Premium version ran just beautifully, and I hadn't installed
any additional software.

Could I abort the install and perform a "clean install"? Does the
Upgrade Anytime DVD allow a clean install?

How long is this upgrade process supposed to last?

Is there a log file somewhere that I can check after to see what went
wrong?

Thanks,

Erwin

Is anything connected to the computer? If yes, try disconnecting any
external device and note, you may need to start the upgrade process over
from the beginning but it's possible just disconnecting any external devices
will get things going.

Second, drivers, even those certified and approved tend to be unstable and
in need of more work when an OS is first released and can take a bit of time
before manufacturer's get fully up to speed. That said, despite the flying
colors you got from the advisor, drivers can still cause issues such as this
which is why I'm recommending disconnecting any external devices.

Likewise, software you've already installed can be an issue as well as these
can go through some changes before developers are fully up to speed with an
OS. As a result, before doing such an upgrade, you should always make sure
you have the latest Vista compatible drivers for your hardware, both
internal and external and you should try to do such upgrades on as clean a
setup as possible, one without any additional software installed.

 

[Er]

Is anything connected to the computer? If yes, try disconnecting any
external device and note, you may need to start the upgrade process over
from the beginning but it's possible just disconnecting any external devices
will get things going.

Second, drivers, even those certified and approved tend to be unstable and
in need of more work when an OS is first released and can take a bit of time
before manufacturer's get fully up to speed. That said, despite the flying
colors you got from the advisor, drivers can still cause issues such as this
which is why I'm recommending disconnecting any external devices.

Likewise, software you've already installed can be an issue as well as these
can go through some changes before developers are fully up to speed with an
OS. As a result, before doing such an upgrade, you should always make sure
you have the latest Vista compatible drivers for your hardware, both
internal and external and you should try to do such upgrades on as clean a
setup as possible, one without any additional software installed.

--
Michael Solomon
Backup is a PC user's best friend
DTS-L.Org:http://www.dts-l.org/- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Thanks for this. It was a brand new computer, with no software
installed (besides Vista) and nothing connected to the computer other
than keyboard/mouse/screen.

I finally gave up 'upgrading' and clean installed vista. Now, every
once in a while, Vista s l o w s down real slow to the point where the
harddrive light comes on every second or so, and the even the mouse
slows down, screen is mostly blank. Popping up the Task Manager takes
a whopping 20 minutes (yes, that is "minutes") but then shows nothing
out of the ordinary. I am sure some driver somewhere is slowing the
whole thing down. How do I find out what program is causing all this?
I have uninstalled all software and took off the one printer I hooked
up. I have no USB or Firewire devices.

Thanks,

Erwin

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Hi Er,
Did you ever go online, load other than reputable software, etc. Could be
that you caught a virus, trojan, malware. etc. Try running your AV followed
by a malware, spyware detector. SpyBot is free but I don't know whether the
current version is Vista compatible.

 

[Michael Solomon]

Thanks for this. It was a brand new computer, with no software
installed (besides Vista) and nothing connected to the computer other
than keyboard/mouse/screen.

I finally gave up 'upgrading' and clean installed vista. Now, every
once in a while, Vista s l o w s down real slow to the point where the
harddrive light comes on every second or so, and the even the mouse
slows down, screen is mostly blank. Popping up the Task Manager takes
a whopping 20 minutes (yes, that is "minutes") but then shows nothing
out of the ordinary. I am sure some driver somewhere is slowing the
whole thing down. How do I find out what program is causing all this?
I have uninstalled all software and took off the one printer I hooked
up. I have no USB or Firewire devices.

Thanks,

Erwin

Well, they way you troubleshoot something like this is to remove things one
by one but only after you've scanned for any possible viruses or malware.
Once ruled out, you then remove things one by one until the problem goes
away thus isolating the item that caused the issue. But you've already
removed all software and some hardware.

If you are still having the issue, that points to hardware. You need to go
to the websites of all the manufacturer's of your various hardware, graphics
card, soundcard, Ethernet card, anything else installed and check for the
latest Vista compatible drivers for your hardware. If they don't exist for
a specific item, you start with that as the possible source.

 

[Er]

Hi Er,
Did you ever go online, load other than reputable software, etc. Could be
that you caught a virus, trojan, malware. etc. Try running your AV followed
by a malware, spyware detector. SpyBot is free but I don't know whether the
current version is Vista compatible.

Hi,

The problem seemed to lie with the graphics adapter driver. Seems like
Vista Ultimate, when it clean installed, used its own driver (for the
right nvidia card btw) which didn't seem to work correctly. I
downloaded the correct one from HP and installed it and it seems to
work better now (knock on wood).

Thanks for all your suggestions,

Erwin

 

[Ed Forsythe]

Glad you worked it out Erwin

Hi,

The problem seemed to lie with the graphics adapter driver. Seems like
Vista Ultimate, when it clean installed, used its own driver (for the
right nvidia card btw) which didn't seem to work correctly. I
downloaded the correct one from HP and installed it and it seems to
work better now (knock on wood).

Thanks for all your suggestions,

Erwin

 

[Er]

Glad you worked it out Erwin

One problem though... Vista keeps downloading a 'new and improved'
version of my graphics adapter driver every night and installs it and
it crashes the computer.... I have to keep reinstalling the old driver
from the Installation Disks that works much better.

How do I keep Vista from trying to download the latest driver that
just doesn't work?

I am about one day away form ditching Vista and reinstalling XP
PRO.... this has taken four weeks now and I am still not up and
running. Unless you buy a computer with a version of Vista and you're
willing to stick with that version, I'd say go ahead, but if you want
to upgrade to a different version of Vista, good luck! It's just not
worth the time and frustration. Maybe next year....

Erwin

 

[Cal Bear '66]

Have Windows Update check for updates, right click on the driver update and
select Hide.