Windows 7: Upgrade hangs up

The upgrade has been hanging on the final step "Transferring files, settings, and programs" (58%)...
It has been at that point for approx. 12 hours. The three dots after the percentage continue to appear and disappear which makes it looks like it is processing, but no progress.
How do I get out that this and complete the upgrade?

Hi aa and welcome to the forums

We will need some more details, to start:
- What version of 7 are you installing?
- Are you upgrading or doing a clean install? If upgrading, how did you start it (from within Vista or booting from DVD)?

You listed your laptop model but if you could fill in the details in "My system specs" it will allow members to look into that without having to go to the Dell page. You can use SIW | System Information for Windows by Gabriel Topala

Finally, please look into Questions to use for help with Installation Issues
We might be needing to ask many of those questions to find out what the problem is, so if you can provide advanced info that will help it go faster

tks

Installing Home Premium version 32 bit
Upgrading from within Vista
uninstalled my Virus protection software (as advised by the upgrade)

Can't access my system information. The upgrade is hung and I can't get out of it.
How do I abort the upgrade and, if I do, what state will the OS be in?

The upgrade is from a Windows 7 DVD, purchased from Amazon.
No other hardware is connected to the computer

Tks aa. I would wait more if you can (some systems seem to take a very long time, at least they did with the RC and RTM).

Only way to abort is, I believe, to shut it down. The state the OS will be in is unpredictable, but with luck you can then just do a repair install and it will pick it up from where it stopped.

If you have personal data on that computer and have not backed it up, you can be in deeper trouble, since this failed install might force you to reformat the HD. If that is the case, I suggest you do not do anything further, but try to find somebody that could access your hard drive (Geek Squad?) and back up the data if still there before you continue.

Also, have you tried Dell customer support? They might have had other similar cases and have a solution ready. I would hate to lead you to a path where you end up without your data.

Do you know how much memory you have?

Let me know