Windows 7 will not install, period. Why? Please read...

Alright, news update:

I returned home from work today, and after a good ~18 hours or so I'd say, the setup was still going on (...).

Sadly, I didn't have a look at the setup log files, and canceled setup. However, the "new setup" was run from a virtual DVD-ROM device, thus ensuring that (at the very least) the "Copying files" stage would be done seamlessly.

I now noticed in the setup logs that...each device (and it seems there are quite a few) takes 5 minutes to install for some reason. The procedure starts, and then there are some messages of the type "Waiting for previous driver installation to complete", before the setup actually continues.

Doing some rough math, if it keeps needing 5 minutes per device, then for, say, 200 devices (including system devices, logical devices, etc), the setup would need...no less than 18 hours!

I plan to monitor setup again in the coming hours, to finally find out if it's merely stuck somewhere or if "5 minutes per device" continues. It's certainly very weird that it takes SO long, though.

I suppose the next 24 hours will be more enlightening.

It is recommended to copy the files off of the virtual dvd and run the setup instead of running the setup from the virtual dvd, because if a reboot is needed your virtual dvd will not exist.

True, that. For now I'll let the setup run infinitely (24 hours?), since it' still doing the same thing, installing new stuff, but 1 item every 5-6 minutes. If the setup eventually fails (with an error message or whatnot - I won't cancel it this time around), I'll give it a final try with the files copied in a hard disk subdirectory...

As it turns out, the device installation per se "only" needed something like 8-9 hours. I did review the device logs, such as the device installation log. However, since this particular log seemed to end with "SUCCESS" in the end, I am at a loss here.

I have rolled back installation of Win 7 (since 20 hours passed), but if there's any other thing I could check here, such as another log file that 'd tell me what the heck goes wrong with the installation, I'd gladly have a look. So far, I didn't find any "errors", but the setup simply...stalled. Took like 8 hours to install devices, alright. Then it stalled.

Check setupact.log in windows directory

2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] ------------------------------------------------
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] WinDeploy.exe launched with command-line []...
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Setup has not completed, adding pending reboot.
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Found generalization state [0x4], setup.exe completion flag [False] --> launching setup.exe.
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Launching [F:\Windows\system32\oobe\setup.exe]...


Nothing wrong with that...And yet, setup was still running (no idea what it was doing) some 25 hours later...

2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] ------------------------------------------------
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] WinDeploy.exe launched with command-line []...
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Setup has not completed, adding pending reboot.
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Found generalization state [0x4], setup.exe completion flag [False] --> launching setup.exe.
2009-05-11 20:23:20, Info [windeploy.exe] Launching [F:\Windows\system32\oobe\setup.exe]...


It does not appear that the install is completing. Can you boot to the win 7 system
and get into Safe mode? Or tuen on Boot Logging.

For reference purposes only, I sent some e-mails to Microsoft about this - Based on their instructions, I will try again installation (for instance, without the disk having any partitions / or data) and see how it goes. I will keep you updated with any info as it comes.

The last response I received was:

"The clean install guys looped in the driver guys who took a look at the log files. Your install is delayed because the Microsoft Virtual Drive Enumerator Driver is hanging which causes all subsequent driver installs to hang. The driver guys looped in the Kernel team to see if this is something that they’ve seen before, and they have not. We also do not have any other external reports of this problem, so you are definitely unique."