Repair Install

MisaMii said:

Hello, this tutorial is really helpful, but I'm stuck at one thing.
See, I checked all the warnings of the tutorial, made sure everything was as it should be, but when I get past step 9 I get a message saying something like this (I've translated it from Dutch to English, so it might not be completely accurate):

"You cannot perform an upgrade from Windows 7 Professional to Windows 7 Professional. You can install a new copy of Windows 7 Professional, but that is not an upgrade and with this all the files, settings and programs won't be kept. You must reinstall all programs with the original disks or files. Make a back-up on an external location, like a cd, dvd or external hard disk if you want to save the files before you install Windows. Click on the button Previous at the top left corner and select 'Custom installation (advanced)' if you want to install a new copy of Windows 7 Professional."

But off course, I don't want to install a new copy. I want to keep my settings and definitely my installed programs. I first had the error message saying I couldn't upgrade because I had a newer version installed already, but that was because I still had the Service Pack 1 installed (which is now uninstalled, as was required like mentioned at the beginning of your tutorial).
So here I am, asking this question, hoping you might know what to do.

I can't afford doing a clean install, really. I'm a student, soon to start my third year in bachelor IT, and I have so many programs required for classes that I just can't reinstall them all...


So please, perhaps you know what I must do in order to get rid of this error message I get? I must absolutely do an in-place upgrade, because my system has some corrupt/damaged files. I've done all the possible solutions already to fix the system, but nothing helped, so doing an in-place upgrade is my last chance of hope.


I really do hope you might be able to help, I have all my hopes on your tutorial, and I eager to finish it.

Hello MisaMii, and welcome to Seven Forums.

What type (student, retail, OEM, etc...) of Windows 7 installation disc do you have?

Hello Fibola,

Q1) Unless you have a "retail" Windows 7 w/SP1 installation disc, you would indeed need to uninstall SP1 before being able to do a repair install.

Q2) If it's a "retail" Windows 7 w/SP1 installation disc, it would have SP1 written somewhere on the DVD itself.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hello Docfxit,

Thank you very much for this. The repair install tutorial has been updated for how to a repair install on a Windows 7 with SP1 installation with a "retail" Windows 7 without SP1 installation disc. :)

Hello Mike, and welcome to Seven Forums.

At step 5B, you would need to right click on the setup.exe file and click on Properties first. Afterwards, you should see a Compatibility tab in the properties page.

If you are, then please post a screenshot of what you are seeing instead. :)

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Mike,

You missed step 5A. You will need to right click on the DVD drive listed there, click on Open, then right click on the setup.exe file in the opened DVD window and click on Properties. Afterwards, you should see a Compatibility tab in the properties page. :)