Win 7 clean install - stuck on "Completing installation"

S

Squirrel93

New Member
Hi. I am attempting to install Windows 7 Ultimate on my until-now XP-based desktop computer. I have gone though all the stages, there are green checkmarks beside "Installing features" and "Installing updates". "Completing installation" is highlighted, and the green bar at the bottom is almost 90% through.

I can move the mouse and the 3 dots after "Completing installation" are moving, so it hasn't frozen but it's been like this for approximately 30-35+ minutes now. Is something wrong, you think? What should I do?
 
Did you download and run the windows 7 upgrade advisor first to check for hardware issues?
 
Sorry to double-post, need new help rather urgently. I believe I successfully finished the Win7 installation, but now I can't use Explorer.exe properly. Whenever I try to access Computer, My Documents, Control Panel etc, there is a box saying "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item".

What's wrong? I did a "clear" install of Win7 over an old XP one, but should that be a problem? Can't access much at the moment, other than surfing the web. Internet Explorer wouldn't let me log into this forum, but managed to get hold of Firefox. :(
 
Did you delete all existing partitions before installing windows 7? Can you tell me what your system specs are?

Motherboard
processor
ram
video card
psu
 
Nope, I think that might be the problem. The installation guide never prompted me to delete the old partition before installing Win7 on it. (And I, being a tech-noob, didn't think about it.)

Every time I boot, I am now given a few seconds to choose between "Earlier version of Windows" and "Windows 7".

Also, every time, a dialogue box pops up saying something about how I should rename a folder called "C:/Program" to "C:/Program1" as it might cause problems otherwise. Is this a sign of 2 installations in conflict?

I can't access Computer or its right-click "Properties" menu, but I can tell you from memory it contains this, at least:

AMD Athlon II X2 3.01 Dual-Core or something along those lines
4 gb RAM, but with the XP version I could only use 3
ATI Radeon 4670 HD

EDIT: Yep, XP partition still present. Currently accessing Internet from it, with all my games and files remaining. Do I somehow remove it for the Win7 to function properly, or what do I do?
 
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Yeah, you'll have to reinstall windows fresh again. This time choose to delete existing partitions and create one. Or actually what I really recommend doing is downloading killdisk or dban and put it on a cd and boot to it to totally wipe the drive providing you don't need any data. Then install windows 7.
 
I can't find any option to erase old partitions when installing Win7, so I have to do it manually.

I got dBan, burnt it to a disk and ran it, but it says that it finished with "non-fatal errors" and then a number of red ERROR messages appear. The old partitions remain.

I got Killdisk, installed it and started it up but not quite sure how to use it. There is a "kill" button but I can't click it.
 
Do you have a card reader installed or any other external drives plugged in? Only have the drive that you need to erase plugged in besides a cdrom to boot from the cd.

To delete existing partitions using the windows 7 install cd, do the following.

When you get to the window where it asks you where to install...

2440d1231630464-clean-install-windows-7-step7.jpg


click on drive options (advanced).

Then highlight each line entry up top and click on the delete button as shown in the following image.

2441d1231630473-clean-install-windows-7-step8.jpg


Then go back and click on new and partition the drive how you want it. If you only want one partition then leave amount in box as it is, it will only create one partition. Click on format so it formats and checks the drive for errors, not really needed but I would do it in your case. Then if it doesn't start automatically installing highlight that partition and hit enter and it should start installing. It will create a system reserved partition of 100mb.
 
Thank you for your extensive help, including pictures! I finally succeeded in installing Windows 7.

One problem after another, I couldn't install it in my native language and now I want to change the display language to Swedish via Windows Update. It's the Ultimate version so I know it's possible, and I found the Swedish Language Pack in the update list.
The problem is: Windows Update won't update. After selecting some updates (including SP1), it just gets stuck at 0% and won't move. I did some online searching, and someone said it could be malware. Got malware scanners, as well as ccleaner to scan for registry errors, but it didn't help much.

Windows is much smoother to navigate than before, but Firefox, if anything, is slower than ever. It often lags and freezes up for several minutes even when using just one tab. I have no idea why this is.
 
Solved it! Went into pgedit.msc or something like that and enabled automatic updates. Now I got the service pack!

The slowness problem continues, however. Firefox and other programs lock up and respond quite slowly. I navigate in Win7 folders fine, but when I surf or install a program, it takes ages. Any ideas?
 
Squirrel93 said:
Solved it! Went into pgedit.msc or something like that and enabled automatic updates. Now I got the service pack!

The slowness problem continues, however. Firefox and other programs lock up and respond quite slowly. I navigate in Win7 folders fine, but when I surf or install a program, it takes ages. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Update should have been enabled by default. After the install did you update your motherboard and video drivers?
 
Squirrel93 said:
te than before, but Firefox, if anything, is slower than ever. It often lags and freezes up for several minutes even when using just one tab. I have no idea why this is.
Click to expand...

Firefox compared to other browsers does run slowly in my experience, you also have to remember that 7 uses more ram and processing power to run the core os than XP, so it may be slightly slower if you have about 1.5gb ram or lower.
 
S.T.A.R.S. said:
How big is the CPU usage and RAM usage when using those programs which work slow to you such as Mozilla Firefox?
Click to expand...
About 30-50% of CPU usage and just over 1 gB RAM when opening 4 tabs in Firefox at once. Admittedly, I did download a game from Steam at the time.

StrangleHold said:
Update should have been enabled by default. After the install did you update your motherboard and video drivers?
Click to expand...
See, I guess this is one of the reasons I don't get along very well with PC computers. I think they should do this automatically and save me the trouble. I have no idea what brand my motherboard is. Any good way to identify it?
 
Download CPU-Z and look on the mainboard tab. Should look something like this:

board.png


The text in the red box shows the motherboard make and model. Once you know the make and model, go the manufacturer's website and download the appropriate drivers.

CPU-Z can be downloaded from here http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html
 
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