Submitted by Users remained stymied today by endless reboots after trying to upgrade their PCs to Windows 7, according to messages posted on Microsoft’s support forum. An answer has yet to be found for all users, who began reporting the problem last Friday after watching the upgrade stall two-thirds of the way through the process.
I experienced a very similar endless reboot issue on 2 of my machines using the Win7 beta and RC. Both PCs were retail (an Acer and a DELL) with relatively common/generic hardware. I would by proxy doubt that Microsoft was ignorant of this issue upon Win7’s release even if they claimed so. A slipped release date seems to hurt Microsoft’s image (and wallet) more than a slip in quality assurance – as we all have accustomed ourselves to expect.
The problem will be patched sooner or later, and we (most of us) will all wind up upgrading sooner or later. XP won’t be around forever… resistance is futile. =)~
I thought it was my unusual install scenario, but I guess it wasn’t I solved it by restarting in 640×480 mode from the F8 menu. That let me finally get to the last step, and now everything works great.
The users caught in this nasty trap have my sympathy. As many have pointed out in various fora, clean installs are usually best and less complicated. One suspects that, unfortunately, those most likely to choose the upgrade option are also the least likely to know to backup everything, and perhaps even the phrase “clean install” is frightening. I see MS’s stock has lost only 50-odd cents. Teflon … amazing. I guess in Wall Street’s eyes, they can do no wrong, and always smell like … freshly printed $100 bills.
Well, people never learn and usually ignore history. There’s a reason for clean installs in Windows are better than upgrade.
Windows is a very complex peace of software. An upgrade has to account for a registry full of shit or not in use anymore, broken software, incompatibilities, installed libraries, drivers, etc. You might be lucky with an almost vanilla install, but everybody knows it’s better to start from scratch.
Upgrading Windows from one version to another is a pain in the ass.
Not just Windows, really – some Linux distros allow you to upgrade one major version to the next, but a clean install usually ends up hurting less. From all accounts, Apple seem to get things right – not sure what they do differently…
That’s what keeps me coming back to OS X time and again. Though it has faults as anything so complex will, that OS is the most elegant and useful I’ve ever worked in. Even BeOS, my favorite from my pre-Mac days, doesn’t come close, though I am very excited about Haiku. I don’t know what their secret is but they continue to ship the only OS that truly meets all my needs without fuss. (OK, one pet peeve: No really good PSX emulators, but that’s not really Apple’s fault).
I’m using Windows 7 RC for now and it’s amazing apart from shitty Bluetooth support, but I’m saving up for a Mac mini. Though, I am tempted to buy a Snow Leopard retail disc and take a chance with OSX86. It’s the OS more than the hardware I care about anyway, and my main system is on par with the new mini as well as easier to upgrade.
I dunno, I’ve heard of problems with third-party applications during Apple upgrades… They’re not perfect either, even if their manpower and tighter control over the operating system gives them a better idea of what they’re upgrading.
Now, the other side of this coin has to be Ubuntu, who is apparently shipping a known-broken wireless manager and a nonfunctional soundsystem
I’m replying to that comment using Ubuntu 9.04, this installation started out as 7.04, went through 7.10, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04. The install (I work on this computer every day) feels as fresh as on day one. And I’ll be installing Karmic next week.
I had the Finder looping in two releases of Mac OS X after fresh installations. They seem to get things right much of the time, but the disasters seem to be bigger when they happen, such as the data loss bugs over the current and previous releases.
Apple doesn’t have to worry nearly as much about poorly written 3rd party drivers. With a small userbase and only a handful of possible hardware/software configurations, they have it easy compared to Microsoft. Some of this is due to the design of OSX and some is due to hardware lock-in.
Agreed a clean install is always better – but thats my experience not just in Windows, last time I tried to upgrade Ubuntu I was left with an OS that didn’t work.
Makes me think it wouldn’t be a bad option for the installer to offer to back up your personal data (my docs etc or visible folders in /home) to an external hard drive or make a backup partition then do a clean install and copy it back.
On Linux, /home/ is commonly put on its own partition, essentially for that reason. You can do a clean-install for an update, or install a completely different Linux, and have all your user-documents — and potentially even some of your user settings — survive the update.
agreed and that how I do it – but I still think an option to backup in the installer wouldn’t be a bad idea for users who don’t have a /home partition.
When you have a Windows partition Ubuntu for example offers to import accounts from windows, why not offer to do something similar from an existing ubuntu instillation and create the /home partition by default too?
Same thing for Windows would be nice. Integrating Windows Easy Transfer (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/easy-transf…) with the upgrade UI for the clean/custom installs would be nice.
Perhaps they already do, I haven’t tried a clean install with W7 over a system that already had Windows on it.
I actually had this problem when doing a clean install of the RC. I don’t know exactly what the details are of the problem users are having with the release version, but mine happened after Win7 was installed, then it rebooted, and was trying to configure everything. I don’t remember what it said (I’ve slept since then), but something along the lines of it couldn’t continue, and then the only option I had was to reboot. This cycle continued until I decided to punt and try again.
I then formatted the hard drive and started over again, and everything went smoothly the second time. I’m still not sure what happened.
That happened to me too, and I came to the conclusion that it was a bad DVD-R. I made three attempts with my first disc, all of which failed at some critical point in the install process. I reburned with a different brand (TDK if I remember correctly) at the lowest supported speed and so far two installs have gone perfect.
Ill probably get shouted down for saying this… But do you really think something like this, from a business standpoint, would impact their stock price at all?
I mean sure, it appears to be a pretty big screwup from a technical viewpoint. It so far appears to be affecting a few hundred users, probably a few thousand considering only a handful are probably reporting it… But in the grand scheme of things will any of this matter? I don’t think this problem would matter even if it ends up being un-fixable – discovery and disclosure of the cause would probably be enough to make most people let the issue drop. The truth of the matter is that the VAST amount of volume (and the real money) on windows sales is from system bundling, and this issue doesn’t even affect any of those sales. And of the actual retail sales, the VAST majority of those end up being clean installs, because most of those sales are to somewhat more technically proficient users who already know better than to even try in place upgrades (they tend to be unreliable – is this really news to anyone?). The sliver thats left is statistical noise.
I don’t have stock in MS, but if I did this kind of thing wouldn’t even make me flinch.
Edited 2009-10-28 23:03 UTC
Agreed… the issue might be annoying, but as long as it’s limited to a bit of grumbling on online forums, the stock markets won’t even notice it, never mind react to it.
Windows 7 endless reboots much faster than Vista ever did.
Just for the record.
This is one time that ROTFLMAO actually fits!
Thanks for that laugh!
Microsoft obviously doesn’t care about the user experience of it’s customers. If you want REAL support, help and community support, check out Linux. Ubuntu (www.ubuntu.com) is a great distribution for new Linux users.
The only “support” I’ve gotten from the Linux community is… Here.. read this website… it will tell all. “But I don’t fully understand what I’m reading” ” Well then.. RTFM!”
I get about the same level of support from the Windows “community” — which is to say, Google is it. At least Linux/*BSD has text config files, with *comments*.
All that said, though, I use Microsoft and Linux where each benefits me most. I use Microsoft stock, and Linux and BSDs to run my computers. (Well, except for Vista on this laptop I just got and haven’t had time to disinfect.)
“…endless reboots faster than Vista…” He he
And no UAC prompts during the process, either!
I know you’re trolling, but I’ll bite anyway.
I have noticed that the best support tends to come from the smaller or more obscure distros out there. Slackware is a great example; Pat Volkerding is perhaps the most charming and helpful BDFL out there. Debian on the other hand, is a mixed bag; it has such a diverse community it’s really all down to who you end up asking for help. The same is probably true for Ubuntu; I’ve rarely had to browse their forums for help as it’s a generally easy distro to figure out, but I’ve gotten a general sense of friendliness from there. Still, I’ve read accounts of bad attitudes from them…
As I said, I believe you are just trying to start a flame war but to give you the benefit of the doubt, email me at the address in my profile with your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’ve used most of the major distros and have extensive experience in Slackware, Debian and LFS. I’m looking forward to your questions.
… windows sux… and goes on and on and on sucking hehe
The more funny is that fix this bug is not in the microsoft’s top priorities. In the words: you pay for pranksters. Is this a serious company ?
“According to Microsoft’s head of support, however, the endless reboot problem isn’t on the company’s top list of concerns.”
lol \o/ lol \o/ lol \o/