Win 8 Upgrade, BE CAREFUL!

[Number1]

$45.00 with tax for Win8 Pro upgrade, I could not resist, great deal.
I have a fairly up to date capable PC, see the specs in my sig.

I decided to go with the "save all my settings and files" install and avoid having to backup and reinstall everything. LOL, what could possibly go wrong?
Got a warning about 3 incompatible apps and was told I would have to reinstall, fine.

Install went flawlessly.

Fired up Chrome, went to liveleak, clicked on a video, display driver crash!!!
Shit,
I realised Norton Internet Security 2013 was not running. Figured out with some difficulty where the shortcut is, clicked on it, I get transported to the desktop........waiting.....waiting.....
Find the Norton shortcut again, click on it, back to the desktop same same same....nothing.
2 minutes later as I am busy doing something else, I get a warning message from Norton. , OK fine, it needs a reinstall.... Would not reinstall on the first, second or third tries after 3 reboots. Wont uninstall.

Computer completely freeze and I have to turn the power supply off......I have to turn the PS switch on and off several times before the computer decide to turn on again....

Norton finally installs, freezes for 10 minutes then reports all is well...... Windows alarmingly reports that no firewall or anti virus are running but when selecting to turn Norton on in the warning window, no results, Norton persist on being reported off. The Norton application itself still reports it's running fine.

More display driver crashes.
I download the latest CCC windows 8 display driver. Windows won't let me run it unless I click on "more info". Then I get an "NSIS error", "windows integrity checker blah blah". Re download the drivers, same results.......

When putting the mouse cursor at the upper right corner, it disappears, I have to back up a bit to the left to get the menu to show up.

Right now, the computer can't keep up with my typing. there is a lag.

Device manager reports there is one hardware item not working. I have no idea what it is. I disabled it, no improvement in performance.

My beloved "aero look" is gone....... I knew that ahead of time but still, what a let down. minor stuff, I know.


Well so far so good, other then the problems, I like it...... YA RIGHT... LOL

I am in for a complete reinstall and format. Thankfully the PC is still running well enough for me to back everything up and start over. I do have a month old back up so I would not have been completely screwed had this "upgrade" completely nuked the computer.

Ill be back after the complete reinstall hopefully to report complete success and general happiness...maybe.

 

[Number1]

Great, when I try runing the windows upgrade assistant I get the message Windows is not available for download in your country/region.

Fuck.

Any suggestions?

EDIT:
OK, found the option where you can wipe out the drive and re install Windows. I chose to clean the drive so it's going to take a while. I wonder where the installation files are on the drive.

I am on the laptop for now.

 

[Mem]

You are very brave doing upgrade with Norton POS software installed,personally would not let it within 20ft of my PC lol...


My upgrade went fine,btw most users are reporting trouble free upgrades,remember to uninstall anti-virus etc before upgrade.

 

[blurredvision]

Anybody who does a straight upgrade from OS to OS needs to be prepared for anything, no matter how much Microsoft promises it will be OK. I will never do an upgrade, fresh install only.

 

[bigi]

I'd really, really skip any Norton stuff.

 

[tulx]

I made a clean install, formatting C: beforehand. That's the only way to go for me. I learned my lesson when doing an upgrade from XP to Vista.

PS - Win8 is fantastic!

 

[Phobic9]

I did an upgrade from Win 7 to 8 and I was blown away at how easy it was. I'm the type that ALWAYS clean installs. This is including the fact I upgraded WITH Norton Internet Security 2013. My system was exactly like I had it before I left Win 7. I was back to playing X-Com within minutes.

Absolutely no issues aside from 7-Zip being a bit wonky.

Things working any better OP?

 

[Auric]

Ehh, at the very least clone/image before installing any major/invasive software package, let alone an OS upgrade.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

It sounds like the OS install went just fine. It's the other software that screwed up the system.

 

[JackMDS]

I do not remember that there is an 11th commandment: "Thou must use Norton".
Actually if there was one, it would Thou shell Not use it.

Win 8 comes with very good firewall + AntiSpyware + Anti Virus

They are free and are frequently updated through the Update service.

 

[Number1]

Here we are 4 hours since windows 8 re instalation started and it's only at 59% of resetting my PC's 1 TB hard drive. It said it would take much longer but this is getting ridiculous

I have never had any problems with Norton before and have been using it for a decade.

This is the first and last time I try to do an OS update on top of the previous OS.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Here we are 4 hours since windows 8 re instalation started and it's only at 59% of resetting my PC's 1 TB hard drive. It said it would take much longer but this is getting ridiculous

I have never had any problems with Norton before and have been using it for a decade.

This is the first and last time I try to do an OS update on top of the previous OS.

So, the OS is at fault because Norton doesn't play nice with it?

 

[kmmatney]

While Norton is much better than it used to be, I still wouldn't have attempted to upgrade with it installed. I was lucky in that I had 32-bit Windows 7, so it wouldn't let me upgrade to 64-bit windows. SO OI was forced to do a clean install, which took about 15 minutes installing to my SSD.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

I was able to install Windows 7, upgrade to Windows 8, and install most of my favorite apps in a little under an hour. Sorry for your troubles.

And... Norton.

 

[hasu]

I am in the same boat. I have a Dell E6400 (not old enough for Microsoft to forget), which came with Vista Business. I installed Windows 8 Release Preview successfully and that installation was a breeze and it came with all the necessary drivers. Last night I bought an upgrade version (download) from Microsoft site and burned a DVD. Now when I try to install Windows 8, it says "A media driver your computer needs is missing. This could be DVD, USB or Hard disk driver. blah blah blah"). WTH? I tried changing the drive type as AHCI, ATA and all that but all in vein. It is already running their Release Preview just fine. Now how do I ask for a refund?

Edit: It could be because of bad ISO, I am creating a new DVD and will update the result
Edit2: Problem was a corrupted DVD. I burned a new DVD and installation went smooth just like the release preview!

 

[rockyct]

Just remove Norton and use Microsoft Security Essentials instead for now. My guess is that you'll eventually just like how invisible MSE runs and forget about Norton all together.

 

[Number1]

The OS is up, time to re install everything. Ill post replies to your comments later.

Norton won't go back on until everything is working properly.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Anybody who does a straight upgrade from OS to OS needs to be prepared for anything, no matter how much Microsoft promises it will be OK. I will never do an upgrade, fresh install only.

Correct

This thread is basically "I shot myself in the foot". You should've known better than this.

a) you should have a back up of ALL your files
b) you should have a back up of your back up of all your files

Hard drives fail, one is simply not enough.

When it comes to file management you can ONLY count on YOURSELF.

Also who in the world still uses Norton????

 

[makken]

blah. decided to try it out on an old laptop before anything else.
Did a clean install, now i'm stuck on Microsoft basic display driver @ 1024x768.
Back on Win7, running windows update would grab a new display driver for me; since Win8 uses the same drivers as win7, I have no idea why that isn't working this time around.

 

[blurredvision]

blah. decided to try it out on an old laptop before anything else.
Did a clean install, now i'm stuck on Microsoft basic display driver @ 1024x768.
Back on Win7, running windows update would grab a new display driver for me; since Win8 uses the same drivers as win7, I have no idea why that isn't working this time around.

Are you able to find the driver manually? Should be able to grab it from the manufacturer's website or elsewhere. If we can help, tell us what model laptop it is.

 

[makken]

Are you able to find the driver manually? Should be able to grab it from the manufacturer's website or elsewhere. If we can help, tell us what model laptop it is.

edit: got it figured out; had grab an older version of the driver and manually install it using the "have disk" thing. gosh I haven't done it that way since windows 2000 i think

Its an old HP pavilion dv6700. GeForce go 7150m. I tried to dl the drivers from nvidia, but wouldn't let me install since it detected the OS as not vista or win7.

I thought it had an ATi gpu for a while too, since the CPU is an AMD, heh.

 

[Berryracer]

N0rt0n !$ teh $|-|!zn!t

 

[zCypher]

Like others have said it definitely sounds like the software screwed up the system and not Win8. I downloaded and installed the 8 Pro upgrade yesterday morning before work. I selected the option to keep nothing. Other than that, it really didn't prompt me for anything. It installed very quickly, no errors or hiccups at all.

It booted up with all of the proper drivers installed for all of my hardware (see hardware in sig). Have not experienced any blue screens or errors of any kind.

Just as an FYI, I tried installing MSE and it told me I couldn't because Windows Defender is equivalent to MSE in Win8.

Still don't like the Metro UI. I was disappointed to discover they got rid of the simple registry fix that you could use in the consumer preview (change RPEnabled - now it's gone). Now you NEED to use third party software to get the classic style shell back, and it's really just not the same. When you boot up with classic shell, you see the Metro UI interface appear and then disappear. Not a huge problem by any means, but still annoying that the prior workaround (which was perfect) is gone.

Still, Win8 is an improvement over Win7. It's noticeably faster for booting up and for overall responsiveness in all tasks.

 

[Bonesdad]

Had no problems with Win7-Win8 upgrade. Don't use Norton (haven't for years and years, thankfully) and it did take a bit longer than I expected (no less than 4 or 5 "percent to finish" timers). But no problems at the end and no problems using since, other than trying to find my way around.

 

[tommo123]

I do not remember that there is an 11th commandment: "Thou must use Norton".
Actually if there was one, it would Thou shell Not use it.

Win 8 comes with very good firewall + AntiSpyware + Anti Virus

They are free and are frequently updated through the Update service.

there are no alerts for the fireawll though are there? like allow/block each program like if you installed comodo/zone alarm etc?

as for the AV, from what i read about win8 it's not as integrated as it is in win7. no context menu option to scan a new folder or anything. people are doing regedits to get this working as it should