So I've done several clean installs of Windows 7 since it's release almost a month ago and they have all gone pretty well. I decided to actually do an upgrade on my desktop and started running into issues right away. With the guys at Redmond pushing so hard for people to upgrade to 7 I figured they would have made it a little easier, but they didn't. Check after the break for an explanation on the two issues that plagued me during my attempts to upgrade them and what I did to
The first issue I ran into was the upgrade would stop at the compatibility report, but not just stop, it wouldn't give me any clue as to what the failure was. I was at my wits end for several days as I tried selecting different options to get around the issue and did countless google searches. I finally came across a posting on a forum somewhere (yeah I know I didn't get the link) that mentioned someone else having the same issue and it turns out they had special characters in their admin name. Of course, that makes sense now, that caused issues on my laptop before. Special characters would include &%$#@ or any other gangsta thug life sign someone could through in their user name to make it more l33t (leet speak for those not in the know).
Mine happened to be there because someone who set up the computer thought it'd be cute to put the J&S in our username. I remembered the issue I had before when trying to change my user name for the admin account and the pain it caused me when I lost all our book marks in firefox so I decided to add a windows account. I then made that account the admin account, and changed the original account to a standard user. Issue resolved, now I could go on to do the upgrade on my new admin account and get on with my life. Wrong!
I thought I was doing so well until this error popped up, pay no attention to the 3rd line, I had to force the error to pop up after it was resolved for this blog. So what does this one mean? I had no clue, I am running a 64 bit version of Vista Home Premium, my install disk let me choose to upgrade to a 32 bit or 64 bit and I chose 64 bit. Well after some more time on Google, it turns out the upgrade dvd's seem to contain both 32 and 64 bit installers. Nice huh? It seems what was happening, was the 32bit installer would start up when you put the disk in and confuse the upgrade process into thinking you were trying to upgrade a 32 bit system to 64, yet the system knew it was 64 and with the 32 bit installer running it thought you were trying to install the 32 bit version. Nice huh?
So how do you get around this issue? It says right there that you need a 64 bit disk, but the upgrade disk contains both. You need to find an iso that is only 64 bit, and it seems if you have a TechNet account that microsoft will provide one for you. That's nice for those that are lucky enough to be IT professionals and have one of these accounts. I can't tell you specifically how you can obtain one of these 64 bit only iso files, but I can tell you they are out there. Yo ho ho matey!
(edit: Yes after getting a 64 bit installer, burning the dvd, and running from my admin account, I was able to get the upgrade started, but it's going to take several hours so I will let it run while I sleep.)
I thought I was doing so well until this error popped up, pay no attention to the 3rd line, I had to force the error to pop up after it was resolved for this blog. So what does this one mean? I had no clue, I am running a 64 bit version of Vista Home Premium, my install disk let me choose to upgrade to a 32 bit or 64 bit and I chose 64 bit. Well after some more time on Google, it turns out the upgrade dvd's seem to contain both 32 and 64 bit installers. Nice huh? It seems what was happening, was the 32bit installer would start up when you put the disk in and confuse the upgrade process into thinking you were trying to upgrade a 32 bit system to 64, yet the system knew it was 64 and with the 32 bit installer running it thought you were trying to install the 32 bit version. Nice huh?
So how do you get around this issue? It says right there that you need a 64 bit disk, but the upgrade disk contains both. You need to find an iso that is only 64 bit, and it seems if you have a TechNet account that microsoft will provide one for you. That's nice for those that are lucky enough to be IT professionals and have one of these accounts. I can't tell you specifically how you can obtain one of these 64 bit only iso files, but I can tell you they are out there. Yo ho ho matey!
(edit: Yes after getting a 64 bit installer, burning the dvd, and running from my admin account, I was able to get the upgrade started, but it's going to take several hours so I will let it run while I sleep.)
Update: So I got up this morning and checked my computer, the update was done. All that was left was to enter the product key. I was online within a few minutes and able to start getting my windows updates and change my wallpaper. Not bad at all once you iron out the kinks.
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