install never completes

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?

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?

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?

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" wrote in message

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.