Win7 Repair Install "Loops" and Doesn't Run

Hello, all—

Have been fighting (and losing!) a problem with my Win7 32-bit Home Ult SP1 no longer being able to accomplish Windows Updates. Got much assistance from NoelDP in the appropriate venue, but the problem seems not to be solvable in an elegant way.

The options that seem left are Repair Install of Win7...and clean installation of Win7 and all applications/patches/updates/etc. I'm struggling to avoid the clean install.

I've cloned my primary system drive to an alternative drive, and that clone starts into Win7 just as the primary drive. (It replicates the "No updates for you!" problem, of course.)

So far, I've been unable to get the Repair Install to work. I read the tutorial, downloaded the correct Win7-SP1 ISO, burned it to disk.

After starting Win7 from the drive I want to be "repair installed" and launching Setup.exe from the DVD (as an Administrator), I get the familiar blue "Install Now?" dialog. Clicking assent segues to the expected "Setup is copying temporary files" screen and expected HD activity, then the expected "Setup is starting" screen. After a second or three of "Setup is starting," the process stops (w/o explanation) and loops back to the "Install now?" dialog.

FWIW, I've also copied the DVD's files to a separate folder on another drive that's available and have mounted the ISO in a virtual drive. Trying these two sources gives the same result as described in paragraph above.

My AV (NOD32) is stopped during this process. As part of trying/failing to solve the "No Windows Updates" problem, ScanNow, NOD32, MalwareBytes have been run, and none turn up problems.

Any advice on what may be happening...or even more to the point, how to cause the Repair Install actually to occur? (My Win7 installation is "seasoned," and I've got some serious applications installed that have been updated several times. Starting over from a new installation of Win7 and getting back to my current configuration would be days of work.)

Thx in advance.

Shen

When was the last time you had a reinstal similar to the perfect one compiled here? Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
If the answer is never then it couldn't be more clear that you are overdue since you have massive corruption that causes almost nothing important to work right.

Did you run SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Did you uncheck everything in msconfig>Startup and then >Services after Hiding all MS Services, then try Repair Install?

Try uninstalling your AV.

Thx for your quick reply, GR.

Responding to your points and questions:

When was the last time you had a reinstal similar to the perfect one compiled here? Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7
If the answer is never then it couldn't be more clear that you are overdue since you have massive corruption that causes almost nothing important to work right.

I've never had to do a clean install of Win7. "...almost nothing important to work right..." is a bit of an overstatement, but I agree with your point that something is amiss.

Did you run SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Yes, definitely—SFC sees no problems. I didn't give the litany here of the thread re not being able to do updates, but in the thread I related that the "usual tools" (SFC et al.) reported nothing wrong. FWLIW, the problem of "no Windows updates" began at the time that Microsoft rolled out recent update to the Windows Update Agent (V7.6.7600.320)—scores of other users have reported the same Update anomalies I encountered.

Did you uncheck everything in msconfig>Startup and then >Services after Hiding all MS Services, then try Repair Install?

Did not do that—will do it later this morning.

Try uninstalling your AV.

Did do that, before my first post here. Absolutely no change.

Also FWIW: I am confident that the ISO I DL-ed is correct version and clean. I used it to install Win7-SP1 on a spare drive, which it did w/o any glitch.

If there's no other cure than wiping the slate clean, I will do that. Unfortunately (for me), that would require a long, involved process of bringing many applications back up to date.

Shen

Did you uncheck everything in msconfig>Startup and then >Services after Hiding all MS Services, then try Repair Install?

Have (now) done that, GR. Zero change in the symptom: Install starts, indicates it's copying files, indicates that Setup is starting...then 2-3 seconds later comes back to the "Install Now?" dialog.

Shen

Hi -
I need to do a repair install in Windows 7, and am experiencing the exact
same problem you described in your original post. Did you ever solve that
problem without having to do a clean install?

Any help would be sincerely appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi, dschachter—

No, I never did ID or solve the "can't do a repair install" problem, but I did fix the top-level issue—needed to repair an existing Win7 installation—by archiving all my data files from the wacked drive to a different location, reverting the wacked drive to a previous state (I archive regularly—have lost too much over the years), then recovering the data files and letting Win7 update. It took a while, but the result was worth the effort.

Sorry that I can't describe a silver bullet for you.

Shen

Yes, I know, it takes a lonnnnngggg time to do it. But there is nothing like a clean install.
Save your data on a external HDD an run Easy Transfer to save settings. As I've seen that Easy Transfer sometimes doesn't recover, I don't trust it for data. %windir%\system32\migwiz\migwiz.exe
Is your Win 7 HP a retail version or a OEM that came with the computer?
If you want to do a big performance upgrade, buy a 128G for Win and programs and use a HDD for data. You have no idea what a SSD can do. PNY CS1311 120GB Internal SATA Solid State Drive Black SSD7CS1311-120-RB - Best Buy

KB3125574 contains all the security and non-security fixes released since the release of Windows 7 SP1 that are suitable for general distribution, up through April 2016.
It’s single, Multi language, 488MB update file (msu). On a recent installation, you must have first to install KB3020369.
For more information read this article: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/...ows-7-and-8-1/

Thanks, Shenzie, and thanks Megahertz07. Your responses are so much appreciated. Nice to know there are others who sympathize and are willing to take the time to share their experiences and suggestions.

The history here is that I migrated from a struggling 500GB standard HD to a fast Samsung 850 1TB SSD. Had everything running smoothly - sfc scannow totally clean - but crashed the system while reallocating some more space to my system_drv partition, using Paragon Partition Manager (generally a problem free procedure). So my injury is self-inflicted.....but at least all my data were backed up to date. I was able to restore the system to 3/31/16, using an Acronis image I took on that date, but for some reason the log file produced by sfc scannow now reports hundreds of issues; don't know whether that would be a problem, causing any unexpected crashes in the future or not, but I don't want to find out.....So I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and do the clean install. Reinstalling all the software (including some with limited number of licensed installs) will obviously be a pain - as willl all of those 200 or more Win updates..... My Win 7 is an OEM that came with my computer - but I have the Techbench iso for Win 7 Pro x64 and burned a disk to use, so no problem there.

Megahertz07, thanks so much for the KB numbers. My concern is to avoid some of the KBs which have been problematical (Win 10 banners, telemetry, etc.). I've been careful and selective up to now (especially in the case of some of the opaque MS non-security updates) with help from sites like ********.com. Should I just go with the KB3125574 bundle, or install the updates in carefully-screened batches as I was planning to do?

Again, thanks so much!

David

Shen - I should have added that, unfortunately, I have neglected to create any restore points since I migrated to the SSD 3 months ago. Mea culpa. Won't let that happen in the future -

David

As it says, KB3125574 contains all the security and non-security fixes released since the release of Windows 7 SP1 that are suitable for general distribution, up through April 2016. As non-security fixes, I don't know if it has only the fixes or also the spy crap that M$ include on the "recommended updates".