Install never completes

I'm having the same rouble upgrading XP to Vista. The installation hangs at
the last step and never completes. I have to hard reset the computer to get
out of the installation. The only thing it told me to delete was Windows
Defender. There are some devices that it says needs new drivers once
installed, but everything else passed. Would a clean install work better?
Any other ideas?



"r_childress" wrote:

> I believe you are attempting an upgrade. Is this correct? If so, pay close
> attention to the drivers and programs section that will tell you what is
> incompatable. If it tells you to delete anything, you will need to do this or
> it probably won't install at all or not correctly.
>
> "Scott" wrote:
>

> > i have been trying to install the Vista beta but the instll never completes.
> > It says it it completing installation but after hours and hours never
> > finishes. I have tried redownloading the beta and reburning to DVD and also
> > seeing if I cold reboot and hit F8 to go to safe mode but the process never
> > finishes and then upon restart the system restores back to its original
> > configuration.
> >
> > Any ideas?

/r_childress/ said:

>
> "Scott" wrote:
>

>> i have been trying to install the Vista beta but the instll never completes.
>> It says it it completing installation but after hours and hours never
>> finishes. I have tried redownloading the beta and reburning to DVD and also
>> seeing if I cold reboot and hit F8 to go to safe mode but the process never
>> finishes and then upon restart the system restores back to its original
>> configuration.

> I believe you are attempting an upgrade. Is this correct? If so, pay close
> attention to the drivers and programs section that will tell you what is
> incompatable. If it tells you to delete anything, you will need to do this or
> it probably won't install at all or not correctly.

It is also possible that this failure was due to a known bug in the
installer. I was unable to upgrade, and that was the reason proposed by a
reliable MS source. Whether or not that is the cause, a clean install
succeeded.

This behaviour does not depend on whether you're doing a clean install or an
upgrade. I prepared a nice 15 GB primary NTFs partition for VISTA, and
attempted a clean install onto it, booting from the DVD.
Like decribed above, it just sits at "finishing installation" forever.

"dev" wrote:

> /r_childress/ said:

> >
> > "Scott" wrote:
> >

> >> i have been trying to install the Vista beta but the instll never completes.
> >> It says it it completing installation but after hours and hours never
> >> finishes. I have tried redownloading the beta and reburning to DVD and also
> >> seeing if I cold reboot and hit F8 to go to safe mode but the process never
> >> finishes and then upon restart the system restores back to its original
> >> configuration.

>

> > I believe you are attempting an upgrade. Is this correct? If so, pay close
> > attention to the drivers and programs section that will tell you what is
> > incompatable. If it tells you to delete anything, you will need to do this or
> > it probably won't install at all or not correctly.

>
> It is also possible that this failure was due to a known bug in the
> installer. I was unable to upgrade, and that was the reason proposed by a
> reliable MS source. Whether or not that is the cause, a clean install
> succeeded.
>

Reporting a bug + finding the setup logs + Figuring out what driver might
cause the hang:

1. google -> beta client
click the first link. It needs .NET but I think it will be installed if you
try to run it without it..

2. finding and identifying the correct logs

setupapi.app.log
setupapi.dev.log <<-- last 20 lines here may indicate hanging driver

These are the primary setup logs, there are others but these are the major.

A:

There can be multiple logs with the same name, but they are different! First
look at the drive you tried to install Vista to, if it has Vista
Windows\INF\ directory and the mentioned logs files.

B:

If you can't find Windows VISTA directory (if setup did not get so far) then
look all volumes/partitions in the drives that were on the machine during
the install for directories starting with $. There are 2-4 of them (possibly
in different partitions) depending on when the setup failed. Search for .log
under all the *:\$WINDOWS.. and again look at the date/minute timestamp to
see which of the logs was changed just before the failure occured.


See that the date and Minute timestamp of the log files are around the time
when the setup failed, sometimes a setup/install failure causes the computer
to automatically reboot and the setup will run again but failing in
different way than the first time (making the bug report less useful). For
best bug report it's better to catch the failure when it first happens. Yes
it means starting the install all over again and keeping eye on it. But this
will guarantee that the last line in the log will be around the time of the
failure. If it is a driver crash then you can figure out the offending
driver yourself just by looking at the last line of setupapi.dev.log.


"Scott" <Scott@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4A32AA64-F3D7-49DE-B03B-E610043B00F6@microsoft.com...

>i have been trying to install the Vista beta but the instll never
>completes.
> It says it it completing installation but after hours and hours never
> finishes. I have tried redownloading the beta and reburning to DVD and
> also
> seeing if I cold reboot and hit F8 to go to safe mode but the process
> never
> finishes and then upon restart the system restores back to its original
> configuration.
>
> Any ideas?