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Windows 8 Upgrade from Windows 7 issues and solutions

 
Over at TheDigitalLifestyle.com one thing I've been getting lots of mail on is installation issues in Windows 8 when upgrading from Windows 7. I thought I would gather some of the possible solutions here.

The symptoms are that the upgrade process will reach a certain percentage complete and then come up with a really unhelpful message saying Windows Installation has failed. 
Disable non-Microsoft services

 

Some none Microsoft services can interfere with the upgrade. It is worth trying disabling them by using MSCONFIG

Start Run MSCONFIG

Go to the services tab

Click Hide all Microsoft Services

Disable everything else.

Reboot

Try the upgrade again

 

 

Remove OEM Applications

 

Check the manaufacturer of your PC/Laptop's site to see if any of their applications are incompatible with Windows 8. Asus for example has a long list.

You might want to uninstall any OEM software or at the very least disable any that start with Windows.

Try MSCONFIG again Selective Startup and uncheck Load Startup Items 

 
Uninstall IIS

 

Windows 8 has new version of Internet Information Services (IIS). If you have installed the Windows 7 version this may interfere with the setup.

Try using Control Panel Programs, Turn Windows Features On or Off. Then turn off IIS - you can always turn it back on in Windows 8 
 
Remove failed Windows Installations and other Windows Installation debris

 

This is actually what caused my own issue. The Windows 8 installation process creates a temporary folder $WINDOWS.~BT. If this already exists this can cause a failure. Don't try to manually delete this folder but instead use Disk Cleanup Manager.

Right Click the C Drive and choose disk cleanup

Disk Cleanup tool
Click the Clean up system files button at the bottom
On the new list of things to clean presented choose and check
Temporary Windows installation files

Note at this point you could also check
Previous Windows installation(s) which will get rid of any windows.old folders and save a bit of space (windows.old contains the operating system files from your previous version of windows)

Let Cleanup do its stuff
Reboot

Re-run setup

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