Re: Failing Windows 8 Upgrade -- PCTECH

I've only done one W8 upgrade so far so I'm hardly an expert. Based on
that sole upgrade and on years of general troubleshooting experience, here
are a few questions:

1. Did the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant have anything to say about drivers?
2. Does Dell offer Windows 8 drivers for the 9100? While generic Intel
drivers should work for most everything it is possible Dell, like other
OEMs, has messed with things and only their drivers will work.
3. Do you see any signs of disk or network activity while it's "Getting
Devices Ready"?
4. If it seems to be stuck, what are you doing? Just rebooting or doing
some form of a recovery/cancel to get back to XP? If cancelling the
install you might consider just rebooting & letting the W8 installer try
again; it tracks installation activities and might be able to determine
that there was a problem with what it was doing or pick up where it left
off.
5. Are you shooting for W8 32 or 64 bit?
6. Have you tried making your XP install as clean/minimal as possible?
Uninstall any drivers that aren't necessary, including the video driver
(let it use a generic one). Uninstall apps that are known to mess with the
system (video capture boards, CD/DVD software like Nero, 3rd party
defraggers & other utils). Uninstall/unplug any hardware not critical to
the installation (printers, add-on cards, additional monitors, USB gizmos).

FYI: An in-place install over XP renames the Windows directory to
Windows.Old and does a clean W8 install to a freshly-created Windows
directory.

Where did you find a W7 ISO? If online & not directly from MS I would
consider it suspect. Though it might work, I don't think a W8 key will
work on W7.

On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 10:30 AM, Bill <brobins3d@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've got a Dell Dimension 9100 with XP Pro on it and I'm trying to
upgrade it to Win 8 pro using their $39 upgrade offer.

It's been stopping at "Getting Devices Ready" at random percentages.
Some people have had luck just letting it sit for hours and eventually
continues. I let it go for 12 hours yesterday with no progress.

Does anyone have a link that will explain how to troubleshoot this type
of thing? I really haven't found anything useful yet. BTW, this is not
an empty disk install, it's installing in-place.

Failing a quick resolution, I've had an idea that I'm think I actually
would prefer. Install Win 7 on it using the key I got for the Win 8
upgrade. I should be able to do this, correct? I've found the iso
image for Win 7 Pro 32 bit.

Bill
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