Windows 8 CP fails to upgrade Windows 7

[King Lizzle]

In an effort to give Windows 8 CP a chance to redeem itself I've tried to upgrade my Windows 7 OS with it but every time it says setup was not successful.

Installing from the mounted ISO file and upgrading a x64 version with the x64 Windows 8. Anyone else had this problem and found a solution? Help would be appreciated.

[Eric Veteran]

I had the problem and could not find a solution. I just get a dialog box that says "something happened." :/

I just used the transfer wizard.

[CPressland]

Upgrade installs are notoriously problematic, that said, when you run the 5MB CP Installer it will list any reasons why the upgrade will fail, for example, MSE being installed.

[King Lizzle]

I had the problem and could not find a solution. I just get a dialog box that says "something happened." :/

I just used the transfer wizard.

Yeah same here, it doesn't actually say what the problem was. I can't be bothered with a clean install/transferring settings. Have way too many applications installed to be worth the effort!

Upgrade installs are notoriously problematic, that said, when you run the 5MB CP Installer it will list any reasons why the upgrade will fail, for example, MSE being installed.

Yeah it made me uninstall MSE before it would proceed but it got to 100% on the initial process then rebooted and did something for a while and then said unsuccessful. Same happened a couple of times.

[Detection]

Upgrading from Mounted ISO ?

Would that even work considering it has to reboot ?

Try making a pen drive and upgrading, mine upgraded fine that way

[King Lizzle]

Upgrading from Mounted ISO ?

Would that even work considering it has to reboot ?

Try making a pen drive and upgrading, mine upgraded fine that way

It does something after it reboots. Figured it extracts everything it needs beforehand. I'll try making a USB drive to install from.

[King Lizzle]

Well I've tried it from a USB today and it still fails. The initial part in Windows works fine, then it reboots and the Preparing phase gets to 100% but after the next reboot once in moves past the fish it says something like "Setup encountered and error and your computer needs to restart". It restarts again and this time I just get the message saying installation was unsuccessful and it's restoring my previous version.

Frustrating as the only way I'm going to really be able to put Win 8 through its paces is to use it on a daily basis. Playing around in a VM is too sterile and artificial. Looks like I'll be waiting to see if the RC works.

[Mystic Mungis]

I had the exact same problem, tried it 4 times and every time i got the same problem. I tried everything I could think of but nothing resolved it. I considered dual booting but I needed a clear out anyway so just formatted.

Also as far as I'm aware you can install from a virtual drive, all the setup files are copied onto the hard drive before the reboot.

[p1p3]

Try running the webinstaller or extract the iso to your c: driver. I would however recommend against running an upgrade if you are planning to develop metro apps using the new visual studio beta as there seams to be a problem acquiring a developer license at the moment if you have done an upgrade.

[King Lizzle]

I had the exact same problem, tried it 4 times and every time i got the same problem. I tried everything I could think of but nothing resolved it. I considered dual booting but I needed a clear out anyway so just formatted.

Also as far as I'm aware you can install from a virtual drive, all the setup files are copied onto the hard drive before the reboot.

It's not worth the hassle for me doing a format - I have so much stuff installed it would be a long, long job! Only reason I wanted to do the upgrade is because I thought it would be quick and easy. I have a laptop I could try it on but I don't think there'd be much point as I only use that when travelling so there wouldn't be much difference between that and running on a VM. Disappointing, but I don't like any of the Metro stuff anyway so I'm not really missing out on anything carrying on in Windows 7!

Try running the webinstaller or extract the iso to your c: driver. I would however recommend against running an upgrade if you are planning to develop metro apps using the new visual studio beta as there seams to be a problem acquiring a developer license at the moment if you have done an upgrade.

Wasn't aware of a web installer so that may work. I'm not a developer so would only be using for day to day computing.

[King Lizzle]

Tried the web installer this evening and that failed too. Third different method I've tried now. There's obviously something incompatible on my system which it isn't flagging up when it does the pre-installation search. Sad thing is that without finding out beforehand whether I could manage to put up with Win 8 on a day to day basis, there's no way I'll be shelling out for the final OS.

[notuptome2004]

Tried the web installer this evening and that failed too. Third different method I've tried now. There's obviously something incompatible on my system which it isn't flagging up when it does the pre-installation search. Sad thing is that without finding out beforehand whether I could manage to put up with Win 8 on a day to day basis, there's no way I'll be shelling out for the final OS.

what hardware are you running

CPU Motherboard GPU the mouse of ram and stuff

[King Lizzle]

what hardware are you running

CPU Motherboard GPU the mouse of ram and stuff

Core i7 920

ASUS P6X58D Premium

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5770

HT Omega Claro Plus+ sound card

12 GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600Mhz

Microsoft Wireless Entertainment Keyboard 7000

Logitech Wireless Trackball M570

OS drive is a SATA3 120GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD

Other drives: 1 x SATA3, 3 x SATA2

Sony Optiarc 7241S SATA2 DVD drive

Printer: HP Photosmart Premium C410b

[notuptome2004]

weird that it is not working for you

[King Lizzle]

weird that it is not working for you

Yeah, there's nothing particularly obscure on there. The only thing it had me do pre-installation was remove MSE.

[Detection]

Yeah, there's nothing particularly obscure on there. The only thing it had me do pre-installation was remove MSE.

Try removing all but 4GB RAM

Weird suggestion but I've seen it workaround install issues on machine with large RAM amounts before

[King Lizzle]

Try removing all but 4GB RAM

Weird suggestion but I've seen it workaround install issues on machine with large RAM amounts before

Thanks for the suggestion. Worrying if larger RAM amounts can cause issues on a newer OS. Between the RAM cooler and all the external cables I'd have to disconnect to get the case out of its hideaway I think I'll just have to concede defeat. I saw someone post on one of the other Win 8 threads earlier that a lot of people are apparently having issues with installation failing where a SATA3 controller is present. I'm wondering if that might be an issue given that my OS SSD is SATA3.

[Detection]

Thanks for the suggestion. Worrying if larger RAM amounts can cause issues on a newer OS. Between the RAM cooler and all the external cables I'd have to disconnect to get the case out of its hideaway I think I'll just have to concede defeat. I saw someone post on one of the other Win 8 threads earlier that a lot of people are apparently having issues with installation failing where a SATA3 controller is present. I'm wondering if that might be an issue given that my OS SSD is SATA3.

Ah yea I read that too about the SATA III, sounds like a buggy driver during setup that hangs trying to load the controller or something similar

Install it to a different drive then image it over to the SSD ?

[+LogicalApex MVC]

I'm confused, why would you try doing an upgrade to a BETA OS?

That being said, there are bound to be issues since the upgrade portion of Windows 8 isn't going to get close to baked down until they reach a feature complete state around RTM. Otherwise they would waste engineering resources doing double work. I would recommend trimming the Windows 7 install down to as clean as possible to ensure a successful upgrade. Error messages at this stage can be misleading or flat out wrong.

But in general you should follow Microsoft's recommendation. Not to put this OS on a production system...

[Detection]

I'm confused, why would you try doing an upgrade to a BETA OS?

That being said, there are bound to be issues since the upgrade portion of Windows 8 isn't going to get close to baked down until they reach a feature complete state around RTM. Otherwise they would waste engineering resources doing double work. I would recommend trimming the Windows 7 install down to as clean as possible to ensure a successful upgrade. Error messages at this stage can be misleading or flat out wrong.

But in general you should follow Microsoft's recommendation. Not to put this OS on a production system...

Why not, we know its a beta and we know upgrades and never recommended but why not give it a go before a full install?

I upgraded my win 7 with 800GB of crap on the drive and it was done in like 20 mins, only did it to see how it would perform before a clean install and was impressed, used my machine for a full day after the upgrade totally fine before wiping it

[DKAngel]

least u can get it to work , i have to disable my marvel sata 3 adapter to get it to install and after that it wont work with or without it enabled

[King Lizzle]

least u can get it to work , i have to disable my marvel sata 3 adapter to get it to install and after that it wont work with or without it enabled

So are you saying that even if it was installed on another drive it won't work if you have a SATAIII controller present in your system? My motherboard uses a Marvell controller for that too.

Ah yea I read that too about the SATA III, sounds like a buggy driver during setup that hangs trying to load the controller or something similar

Install it to a different drive then image it over to the SSD ?

From what DKAngel is saying it sounds like even that wouldn't work if the SATAIII is even present in the system. I find it really strange that such an important standard would be such a problem. It's been out a couple of years now and I'd assume MS would be using SATAIII drives on their dev systems. Until I read DKAngel's post I'd actually been contemplating a clean install.

I'm confused, why would you try doing an upgrade to a BETA OS?

That being said, there are bound to be issues since the upgrade portion of Windows 8 isn't going to get close to baked down until they reach a feature complete state around RTM. Otherwise they would waste engineering resources doing double work. I would recommend trimming the Windows 7 install down to as clean as possible to ensure a successful upgrade. Error messages at this stage can be misleading or flat out wrong.

But in general you should follow Microsoft's recommendation. Not to put this OS on a production system...

Well MS has gone to pains to label this a Consumer Preview instead of a beta - it should be much more stable than a traditional beta and suitable for day to day use. That said I always do an upgrade when installing my first build of a new OS - mainly for ease as I don't want to be doing a clean install whenever new builds are out. I also mod the ISOs so I can upgrade between beta versions. I did the same with Vista and Win 7 builds. I prefer to wait until the RTM to do a clean install.

[Detection]

I think once the OS was installed and chipset drivers updated with Win 7 ones it would probably boot fine

Its likely just the setup ISO does not have the necessary drivers, or has a bug in the ones in the ISO - it wouldn't be using them once it was installed

[King Lizzle]

I think once the OS was installed and chipset drivers updated with Win 7 ones it would probably boot fine

Its likely just the setup ISO does not have the necessary drivers, or has a bug in the ones in the ISO - it wouldn't be using them once it was installed

I did a clean install on a spare drive (had to disable the Marvell 9123 controller in the BIOS for it to install). Got Win 8 set up, installed Intel chipset drivers and the Marvell SATAIII drivers but after rebooting Win 8 will not boot at all unless the controller remains disabled. It gets stuck at the scree with the fish and the rotating circle. Can't find any drivers that might work so I've got no chance of being able to run Win 8 as my main OS at this time.

[Detection]

I did a clean install on a spare drive (had to disable the Marvell 9123 controller in the BIOS for it to install). Got Win 8 set up, installed Intel chipset drivers and the Marvell SATAIII drivers but after rebooting Win 8 will not boot at all unless the controller remains disabled. It gets stuck at the scree with the fish and the rotating circle. Can't find any drivers that might work so I've got no chance of being able to run Win 8 as my main OS at this time.

Did you try installing the chipset drivers in compatibility mode for Win 7 ?