RESOLVED Problem when upgrading from XP to Vista
I had this issue on a brand new Dell Vostro laptop. After all the pissing about that I had to go through just to order the damn thing (two and a half hours on the phone to some lady in god-knows-where who’s first language was NOT English, dammit) it arrived with XP pre-installed and Vista available as an upgrade on DVD. I put in the DVD, begin the upgrade, and I get the error message …
Windows Could Not Update The Computer’s Boot Configuration. Installation Cannot Proceed
Great. This is just what I needed. God himself is punishing me for buying a Dell. Anyhoo, Googling the problem was a waste of time, as nearly all the results referred to an issue with the registry. I knew that this was not where my problem was as I’d already tried a clean install, no joy. Then my brain finally kicked in … “could not modify the boot config? You mean the boot sequence in the BIOS? Duh!”
Here’s your line of thought…. Vista requires several restarts during the install process. It achieves this by changing the boot sequence in the BIOS during install, then changing it back to the hard disk when the install is done. If the BIOS has some fancy-pants security feature preventing changes, the install can not take place.
The fix; I started up the Vostro laptop and accessed the BIOS (F12 – enter setup) and made my way to the boot menu. I made the optical drive the first boot option (careful here, Dell don’t make this easy for novices), disabled the “no-execute memory protection” option, restarted the computer, and performed the upgrade without issue. The same fix would clear the way for a clean install. BE WARNED however, that it important to leave the computer alone and not give in to the temptation to fiddle with it until after you are taken to a user-input screen – if you fiddle with it before then, you’ll interrupt the process. Only change your boot sequence back AFTER you have been delivered to a Vista sign in page or the desktop.
Did you find this helpful? Let me know, twitter me… @robert_nz
Tags:dell, fixed, resolved, upgrade, vista, windows, xp