Upgrading win7 x86 --> Win8 x86, programs/settings NOT retained

[GPz1100]

[RESOLVED]

See http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=34229006&postcount=8

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Got the $40 deal from MS.

There are several ways to run this.

1) Windows upgrade assistant from within windows
2) Windows upgrade from the created iso (dvd) from within windows
3) Windows upgrade from the created iso (dvd), booting from the dvd.

In scenarios 2 and 3, I don't keep the option to keep my existing programs. It says it'll put my data into windows.old, which means all settings, programs, etc, will need to be reinstalled.

What am i missing here. Why is the *true* upgrade function only available via the upgrade assistant and not from the created dvd?

 

[Nothinman]

Most likely for simplicity's sake. What's the problem with doing the install for #1 if that's what you want?

 

[GPz1100]

Lack of consistency. I will be upgrading other machines in the future. No need to redownload 2+gb of files since the iso is already created. Need to understand why this is happening.

 

[Nothinman]

Lack of consistency. I will be upgrading other machines in the future. No need to redownload 2+gb of files since the iso is already created. Need to understand why this is happening.

Can't you just extract the ISO once you've downloaded it and run the installer from there?

 

[Ferzerp]

It is 100% consistent. The only windows upgrade has always been when you install from the first OS. When you boot from something else and install like that, it is *not* an upgrade in the traditional sense (even when you're using an upgrade license, that's still a clean install).

 

[GPz1100]

@Nothinman, I did extract the contents of the iso to a folder on the system. Had similar results, no upgrade function.

@Ferzerp, I can accept a clean install being required when booting from the dvd. When executing the setup.exe from the disk within the OS, upgrade option should be available. It's not. The only time i'm given the option to upgrade is when it's done through the upgrade assistant.

 

[JackMDS]

If the intend of the heard is to help other people too, then I think that the Thread's name has to be change to: "Upgrading win7 x86 --> Win8 x86, programs/settings NOT retained if you do not do inPlace Upgarde".

InPlace Upgrade is done from within Win 7 when it is actively running.

 

[GPz1100]

@Jack, that would be a more appropriate title, but I think the forum software has a limit on title lengths.

ISSUE RESOLVED

I omitted one (what i thought to be minor) detail. During the course of testing, the installs were being done from a usb flash drive. More specifically, the flash drive is configured to mount the windows ISO file and present it as a virtual disk when booting from the usb device. This is similar, but not the SAME as when booting from the dvd directly.

In a different scenario I copied the contents of the ISO to a folder on the USB drive (maintaining the iso folder structure of course). Ran setup.exe from within windows but resulted the same problem. Not sure if this is due to the iso contents being a level deeper than on the actual dvd, or because the media was usb - again, no *inplace* upgrade option.

So, two solutions to this problem:

1) Copy contents of the dvd to a folder on the existing win7 installation (ie c:/win8)

2) Use the actual Dvd

3) Untested, but might possibly work, use some software to mount the ISO file as a virtual dvd on the system you want to upgrade.

For both #1 and #2, the upgrade function was available both from within windows and when booted from the dvd.

I guess the only question that remains is why these restrictions when using the usb flash drive. My guess would be possibility of drive or files becoming not available after windows reboots to continue the installation.