31% of Windows 7 issues are related to OS installation

[Night Hawk]

31% of Windows 7 issues are related to OS installation

New Windows 7 users are reporting that upgrading to the new operating system can be a pain, and while the new release has its bugs, it's worth the effort to get them sorted.

By Emil Protalinski
Last updated December 14, 2009 11:09 AM

Thirty-one percent of users that have been experiencing trouble with Windows 7 have reported problems with upgrading to the operating system. The data comes from consumer helpdesk firm iYogi, which recently conducted a survey of more than 100,000 of its customers. The number means that the majority of problems iYogi's customers are experiencing have to do with Windows 7 installation, or the related application and data migration. These are fixable issues, but they don't paint a good first impression of the operating system. While Microsoft clearly still has work to do in the upgrade process department (though as noted in September 2009, it is faster than Vista's), this number is not as bad as it may first appear.

Most users who move to the next version of Windows do so by buying a new PC (about 95 percent). This means that the larger majority of users are already not affected by the biggest issue that is plaguing Windows 7; that's quite good news for Microsoft. Of course, the company needs to make sure these users don't get discouraged, and the company has help resources for that: via phone, e-mail, and as of October 2009, even on Twitter. Those who do have issues installing Microsoft's latest and greatest, however, are reporting that they prefer Windows 7 to Windows Vista, once they get past the upgrade kinks.

More at: 31% of Windows 7 issues are related to OS installation

 

[Zidane24]

...and the reason why the greater number of folks have issues with upgrading is the lack of knowledge of the normal consumer. Most consumers will come home and pop the upgrade disc into their computer and do the upgrade without a second thought

When you upgrade an OS...there is so many variables at play and no way for Microsoft to be able to predict every scenario and be able to prevent any issues that occur in such scenario.

 

[starwolf1336]

i believe it

 

[win7clutz]

...and the reason why the greater number of folks have issues with upgrading is the lack of knowledge of the normal consumer.

This clearly explains why MS is always up against the wall with the whole upgrade process. You can't expect a large % of end users to be geeks. They make their purchase based on insert the disk, follow the prompts, and all will be fine.

I don't see this changing dramatically in the near future but still impressed with the progress made when MS listens to their customers and makes a sincere effort to eliminate the headaches related to the process.

 

[Night Hawk]

A great deal of the problems seen when upgrading are actually out of most everyone's control to start with. One main factor will be how well maintained the previous version's installation is at the time of the upgrade itself. If a drive is cluttered up and fragmented as well along with numerous hidden registry errors an upgrade can be disasterous!

The ideal situation isn't always the most affordable for many however. With a vendor like newegg offering the full retail version of Ultimate there for $30 less then the $319.99 price that still is far out of reach for many on a tight budget and who wouldn't even be using the additional features. The Home Premium still sees a $183.99 $15- off still above what many have to spend despite the mark down seen on that as well.

For the novice user or those who never installed an OS previously the upgrade is the only solution they have other then bringing the system to a shop and paying out for someone else to do what they can at home. The last option brought in the article there of course is simply buying an entirely new system with 7 already on it.

The actual ideal situation is the one option the advanced user takes of planning a full fresh install of any new version on a fresh primary. This is the more time consuming method of partitioning and formatting a new drive let's say for a brand custom build if they are not simply nuking everything even the present primary on the existing OS drive on a present system. And then lastly all the programs that will be installed afterwards.

But taking all of this into consideration one thing really stands out as to what the biggest problem with 7 is? An upgrade! Upgrades with previous versions ran into similar problems as well when upgrading which shows some real progress if that's 7 biggest bug there!

 

[Zidane24]

A great deal of the problems seen when upgrading are actually out of most everyone's control to start with. One main factor will be how well maintained the previous version's installation is at the time of the upgrade itself. If a drive is cluttered up and fragmented as well along with numerous hidden registry errors an upgrade can be disasterous!

The ideal situation isn't always the most affordable for many however. With a vendor like newegg offering the full retail version of Ultimate there for $30 less then the $319.99 price that still is far out of reach for many on a tight budget and who wouldn't even be using the additional features. The Home Premium still sees a $183.99 $15- off still above what many have to spend despite the mark down seen on that as well.

For the novice user or those who never installed an OS previously the upgrade is the only solution they have other then bringing the system to a shop and paying out for someone else to do what they can at home. The last option brought in the article there of course is simply buying an entirely new system with 7 already on it.

The actual ideal situation is the one option the advanced user takes of planning a full fresh install of any new version on a fresh primary. This is the more time consuming method of partitioning and formatting a new drive let's say for a brand custom build if they are not simply nuking everything even the present primary on the existing OS drive on a present system. And then lastly all the programs that will be installed afterwards.

But taking all of this into consideration one thing really stands out as to what the biggest problem with 7 is? An upgrade! Upgrades with previous versions ran into similar problems as well when upgrading which shows some real progress if that's 7 biggest bug there!

That last paragraph speaks volumes about the whole experience with 7 this far...

If the biggest issue with an OS is the ability to upgrade from an inferior version...you know you have accomplished something special

 

[Night Hawk]

It's actual fact to most here who did run the beta then RC onto the retail 7 that there's been some major improvements over previous versions that are "quite noticable"!

The controlled group more or less surveyed there shows the two things mostly seen as problems with upgrade installs topping the charts there. The second is a matter of older more or less outdated hardware in the case of a low end video card for the Aero theme. And most of those are likely old AGP cards or early low end model PCIe cards at that.

 

[Win7User512]

And MS has been making the actual installs easier (wizards, "Next" buttons, etc)...

 

[Roddy]

Also, the sheer NUMBER of PC users today compared with when WIN3.1, WIN95 etc were in play surely means the % of problems would escalate...PCs essentially WERE in office environements with 'inhouse geeks' to solve these types of 'upgrade' problems, now PCs are EVERYWHERE including in the hands of peeps (like me a lot of the time!) that really don't have much of a clue... not to mention the hugely diverse types of hardware and software combinations....it all adds up to 'problem upgrades'.

Additionally, this is reported on nowdays...it wasn't so much pre-www....bbs?

So I don't think MS do such a bad job.

Rgds
Rod

 

[Night Hawk]

I just replaced one extra drive pulled out of an external usb casing originally for testing 7 having one more drive in with a new larger host drive and saw a nice fresh trouble free clean install with a full version disk. But after starting off with the beta builds onto the RCs with 7 and now the retail there was only thing that was going to work here being a nice fresh clean install.

The price on the drive I was looking at for some time saw a break and it was time! The working formula however was still a clean install avoiding headaches commonly seen with upgrades especially when a previous version has been on for some time and needs to be refreshed with a clean install or full recovery there.

I certainly know what you are referring to there Roddy having worked at one pc manufacturer's numerous plants spread all over when the company was big at one time in "office machines"! When www came along and you started seeing the first home pcs they didn't branch out and soon slumped!

Try carrying one of those old monitors was like carrying a small engine block! whew! and when looking at the screen back in the 80s you didn't evem see 3.1 there!