My woes with Vista 64-Bit

FlightSimBoy

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As some of you know, I upgraded to a 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate the other day. It has so far been one of my worst experiences with computers. Here is what happened:

First try: Install was successful, but I had to talk to a Microsoft rep on the phone for an hour to get it activated. All was well after that, I installed all critical updates, including SP1. This was an upgrade install, or partial reformat, or whatever you want to call it. This installation worked great for a day, but then I booted up yesterday morning and found that chkdsk needed to run, so fearing there was a problem, I let it run. Huge mistake. It corrupted my Windows installation. I could only access my desktop and main user profile in safe mode. I also tried booting from the system restore utility on the installation disk. So, not wanting to deal with the trouble of the Microsoft techs (even though they are very nice and respectable, but sometimes hard to understand), I did another partial reformat/ upgrade, so that leads me to

Second try: Install was successful again, but this time with errors. The chkdsk utility tried to run on the first bootup, but I canceled it. Everything appeared to run normally, that is until I try to install drivers and updates. It appeared that even though I was the systems administrator, I could not install anything except for basic programs like Firefox. I got countless errors when I tried to install upgrades, and one time I booted, my system hung at the startup screen with a message "Updates failed, reverting changes made" or something like that. I left it at this screen for 10 minutes and got nothing. So, I force-restarted the system (switch on PSU) and tried again. Same message. This time I waited 5 minutes. I put my installation disk in, and restarted. So, that leads me to

Third and current try: This time, it was war. I did a complete reformat. I have all of my music and personal files backed up on DVDs, flash drive, and memory card, so I'm not worried about my data. Chkdsk did not run at start. Everything appears to be fine so far, in fact the installation was extremely fast compared to the others, but I'm sure that was because it didn't have to overwrite files this time. It appears that the updates are downloading and installing, but I will have to check after I restart here in a few. If this works, then I will call Microsoft and re-activate, but I'm giving this installation a few days to sort out. I will also ask them why this happened. I know it was probably because of my own stupidity somewhere. I am really hoping this installation works out. I get stressed out when I have to do a total system restore and/or reformat, because of all the updating and driver downloading/ installing I have to do.
 
Update installations are crap, I wouldn't even bother with them. Clean install all the way. If it happens again you may want to think about running some tests on your hard drive to see if it is being flaky as well.
 
Alright, SP1 and other updates, including GPU drivers have successfully installed. Now working on sound card and TV tuner. So far, so good!
 
FlightSimBoy, you can use it for a while without activating right? Give it a week or something, if it runs smoothly then activate it.
 
You can go 30 days without activation. I was thinking about 3 or 4 days, but I might go for a week just in case.

Sound card up and running :)
 
Yeah. I was getting 3-4 BSODs after I installed Steam on my machine (XP Home SP2), so I just reformatted lol. I have 2 partitions and I save everything on D:. I was pretty pissed and too lazy to fix it. So I just did the reformat. But now that I think back, I also installed Windows Live Messenger, which screwed up my machine earlier so idk whether to get Steam back on...

Sorry. Had to share.

Back on-topic (somewhat): You think I could get vista on my machine no problems? I've been using XP for the longest time, and because I can't afford to build a new rig atm, I think the closest I could get to a change is a new (not really new) OS.
 
On that machine, I would stick with XP. Yes, I think Vista would run fine on that, but I wouldn't spend any money on it. Save up for a new rig. It is much more worth it.
 
Now I'm afraid.... :( Installing in a few days.

But it will be a clean install, so hopefully, I won't have to try 3 times :D
 
Everything is stable so far, all updates installed including SP1, GPU and sound card drivers are in, haven't got the drivers for my cable tuner because I don't use it that much.

So far so good. Giving it till Monday before I activate it probably.

I'm going to try out the Spore creature creator now! It looks really fun!

And I have learned my lesson. Re-format before installing an OS. Makes the process so much easier, except for the backing things up part when all you have is a 4 gig memory card, 4 gig flash drive, a 256 meg flash drive, and single layer DVDs. If I had 2 dual-layered DVDs, I could have backed everything up I wanted to and still had room to spare, but I had to sacrifice a few things.
 
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