Installing Windows 7 – A Lol

Publish Date:

Well, yeah…

I tried to install Windows 7.

As I did want to install it on a separate partition,

so I did reboot my PC and run the setup from DVD.

Setup starting and all, great.

Well, until the step to select your partition.

Ofc. it wouldn’t recognize the ext3 partitions (display them though, god bless you).

The first strange thing was, that free space was listed as a partition of type extended.

As I read Windows 7 would place start- and end of a partition differently then old windows (MB border instead of blocks or sth) and so space could be double-assigned resulting in possible data loss etc I did already create it in my running Win XP system.

  • So, selecting it and clicking next it failed.
  • Needs a system partition or sth.
  • So, delete, new and try. Fail.
  • Format and try. Fail.
  • Delete, try on free space. Fail.

What the heck? I tried all sort of things, but it just did not work.

In the end I did boot my XP again and tried autorun and install from there.

Guess what. It worked. But now I don’t even remember what I selected, a partition or free space.

I think it was a partition I created in setup (run from DVD).

And damn… Now it’s 150 MB. That’s totally not what I wanted. (That HDD is the oldest of my 4 ones and did seem to have bad sectors. Linux fucking up and such, when trying to access it (It was some Partition not readable by Windows). And now I fear Win7 will crash, fuck up or whatever sooner or later. Inevitably. Maybe I’ll reinstall it after all.)

And so I wonder whether it will even install on a PC without any running windows system.

Or will people end up installing XP so they can install Win 7?

Update:

Oh great…

While installing, suddenly a countdown started, 10 seconds until restart.

Gladly I could save this post in those 10 seconds.

But what the hell?

So I have to install it (or start the installation) from within my old running system but then am not allowed to decide when to restart? Yeah, thank you.

Well, good enough you think. But that’s not all.

After reboot my great flawless GRUB boot loader, of course, did not list Win7.

Well, why should Microsoft do something like that anyway? Windows is the one and only, right? …

So, I did try to run Win7 from that hard drive, where I installed it to. Of course that didn’t work.

Windows would write its own boot loader to the (pseudo first) hard drive my old System was installed on. That came to my mind later. No boot entry in the hard drive the actual Win7 partition is on.

Anyway, I did select my Windows XP entry, now being Windows.

And bang, a short flash of boot loader with some selection, setup continuing.

So I already wondered, did it even install on the partition I told it to? Or did it overwrite my XP?

Anyway, installation continued.

And continued… and continued…

Seriously. Copying Windows files, expanding Windows files (what is that supposed to be? Extraction, probably?), installing features and upgrading. Good, waiting and such.

But then comes step “Completing installation”.

Wow you say, that can’t take much longer.

Well, just that step did take 95% of the time.

I was thinking about writing 90%, but that was (like) 20 Minutes before it even completed that step.

The post-date of this post tells me: first reboot at 8:41. The completing installation finished on 9:33. Neither was the first the start of the setup, nor was the latter the end of the installation. Seriously…

So…

  • I had to start setup from within running Windows,

  • restart with 10s countdown (no option to pause or anything)

  • setup

  • restart with 10s countdown (is there any use to this? After all I have no other option… And I can’t do anything else.)

  • setup

  • restart without! countdown (so now you noticed “ah, we don’t need this”???)

  • setting up

    With selecting your keyboard layout a second time. (Maybe you switched keyboards or state now after all.)

  • restart

Oh, and the Win7 boot loader lists “Earlier Version of Windows”. Yes that one did boot my old system, XP.

But wouldn’t it have been possible to actually name it XP?

And I do wonder: Will it only list the one, single Windows system you installed from?

No Linux for sure, but would it list other Windows systems?

So, having quite a lot of problems and issues here I was thinking:

Linux is doing it so much better(!).

You boot a live system.

Do things you have to do before installing (from the CD!).

Surf the net for help if you need it.

You start the setup and can use a partition manager to all your needs.

You can, you may, but you don’t have to.

A DVD? Some strange “Windows is loading files” before anything?

Linux systems fit on one CD. And they (can) boot to a live system. (Yes, not all. And there’s also DVD ones. Whatever, that’s optional.)

4 restarts?

Linux does this with 1! (And one is necessary to boot into the system after all. And that’s probably the only reason.)

And (if I remeber correctly, (which I do!)) Linux doesn’t take a whole hour to install.

Maybe I’m supposed to compare to XP, so the/my conclusion won’t be as bad?

Yes I said as bad, as XP installation is still better. Even while it does not have a boot loader.

Win7 one doesn’t even list Linux, so it’s only half a boot loader.

Now I have 2  chained boot loaders.

Note: When talking about Linux, ofc., that is a wide term.

Features come from using different distributions, mainly Ubuntu and Debian.

Well, I will either reboot to Win7 now, or work on my XP some more and boot into Win7 later or tomorrow.

Or as said before, reinstall it to a correct partition anyway.

I didn’t give up on it yet, although that part already really sucked for a brand new (shiny) operating system from a multi-million world corporation, supposed to do everything better, correct and user friendly.

I will write again. Especially about the new task-bar, which I think I don’t like.

Follow-Up (in German)

The system itself is not that bad.

Few minor things that could be improved, but otherwise a great system.