Gary Pretty’s Blog

By Liam on May 6, 2009

Thanks for posting that. Mine sat on 21% for about half an hour.

By Drew on May 6, 2009

Just adding another thank you. Mine is currently stuck at 21% and I was sure what to do before finding your post. Very helpful.

By Jerry on May 7, 2009

Same with me. Stuck at 21%. Thanks for the post. I’ll wait it out.

Jerry

By Mike on May 7, 2009

Thanks man. You are the man. Do wait it out. It does pass!

By Awesome on May 7, 2009

Wow, i was just about to restart my computer on the install until i found this website.
It just passed after 20 mins

By Jason Rhodes on May 7, 2009

Mine crashes at that point.. or hangs. Quite often at the Expanding Files section the screen goes blank and it reboots for no reason. I have been running the Win 7 32bit Beta version which installs fine, even tried it again today. But the x64 version will not work. Even burned the dvd at the slowest speed possible.

Got Intel Core i7 CPU, and 9GB Corsair 1600MHz ram. No overclocking has been done.

By Andrew on May 7, 2009

thanks for posting this, mine has been sitting there for half an hour so far… guess ill keep waiting.

By Cameron on May 9, 2009

Thanks for this! Thought something was wrong, I’ll just let it finish!

By Jason on May 10, 2009

Yep thanks heaps. Sitting waiting now. Oops. It off again 42%

By stuc on May 19, 2009

Phew – I was just about the rest the machine when I googled your site.

By Shawn on May 20, 2009

I made a mistake and tried to install the 32bit version on my 64bit Dell D620.
When the Windows 7 installation came to the point of “Expanding Windows Files”, it never made it passed 0%. It locked up and gave me a message about drivers not loaded. I was shocked until I realized what might be the mistake. I read posts where the burn might be bad and to reburn the DVD. I am not sure if burning a 32bit image will work, but the whole situation made me recheck everything.
I downloaded the 64bit copy of Windows 7 RC, and it hung at 0% again. I started to get mad, until I came accross this post. After reading a few posts, I noticed my PC had moved on.
Thank you all for the words of wisdom and reminder to be patient. “Expanding Windows files” gave me an error when it would not work and just took a little longer than I expected when it finally did work.

Be well.

By Erik on May 28, 2009

Okay good! Mine has been stuck at 21% for about 30 Min, thanks for the heads up!

By Lex on Jun 9, 2009

45 mins later and she’s off again!

I think the time is spent finding/downloading extra install files.

By Saraneth on Jun 13, 2009

Mine was at 21% for 2secs.. lol

it did hang at 0% for 20mins tho, which is why I am here

By Saraneth on Jun 13, 2009

Scratch my previous comment. Been sitting on 62% for over 3 hours now:(

By Michael Visser on Jun 15, 2009

Installing RC now, hanging on 21 percent. Been 30 minutes on a HP Presario notebook… tick tock. Thanks!

By Michael Visser on Jun 15, 2009

After close to an hour it passed 21% and is now flying onto 52%, be patient people! I recommend ensuring you have as few devices connected during install, I removed my external USB drive and turned off wireless on my notebook. Will do a review on my site of Windows 7 RC1 soon!

By Barnackle Bill on Jun 24, 2009

Thanks for your post. I was about to reboot too. I guess I’ll let it run overnight.

By Pirouz on Jun 27, 2009

Same issue. Stuck on 21% for over an hour on my HP Pavilion Notebook. I must say that so far, this has been the most frustrating part of the installation process. If this is such a common problem, then why doesn’t Microsoft come out and post something official about it? Isn’t this RC copy for the enthusiasts and IT professionals who want to get an early exposure into the software? If yes, then treat them with the respect they deserve and don’t insult their intelligence! For over an hour, I have seen no progress on my system and all I’ve seen have been 2 messages at the bottom saying “Please wait…” and “Gathering additional information before expanding files”. This is no way to comunicate with IT Professionals and Enthusiasts… It’s like an “Endless Loop”. They shuold build a mechanism in there to detect how long a process is taking and to advise and prompt the end-user for action. I hope I don’t hace to restart my system because I have no idea what it has done to my Vista!

By DanO on Jun 30, 2009

If this is Microsoft’s RC, then they have some problems! I have tried evreything including leaving my machine overnight at the “expanding windows files” only to find it with a system hault the next morning. Windows 7 Beta installed without issue so what the heck did they do? I have tried multiple ISO’s burnt at different speeds…64Bit and 32Bit clean installs..2nd drive disconnected, etc.

Microsoft- you need to get your act together and do something about this or rename the Beta to RC and put this RC in th trash.

By D. Pierre on Jun 30, 2009

Mine was stuck on 0% all night last night…maunally powered itoff this morning. I am trying again and it still doesn’t get past 0%. I installed the beta and was doing a fresh install of this. This sucks so bad I want to throw my laptop out of the f**king window!! I was actually liking windows 7 until now…WTF?? I’m considered tech savvy, but this is frustrating the hell outta me. It’s funny cause I stopped using my macs when I got the 7 beta but this is forcing me to go back. I wish Microsoft could make things work a little easier but I guess that is asking too much. Fuck windows…osx FTW!!

By Cole on Jul 1, 2009

Mine was stuck at 18% for ~1 hour. Just before I didnt a hard power-down I googled around. After about an hour it kicked back into gear and is happily extracting 1172 of 2932 MBs of Windows installation files. Yay pepto-bismol!

By Tod on Jul 4, 2009

I have a 32 bit as well as a 64 bit disk. Neither will get past 0% on expanding windows files. I’m doing this on an HP laptop. I downloaded the ISO’s using my 64 bit IE browser on my 64 bit Vista install. I heard that one thing to try is a download made on 32 bit software. I’ll try that. But, I do have to say that two different UBUNTU disks that I downloaded on the same manner on the same machine just plain rock on the installs. I was really hoping for a better windows than windows (at least an improvement from Vista). I am very disappointed that Microsoft wasn’t able to design their software to be as effective in quickly installing across a broad range of hardware as UBUNTU. If my second attempt at downloading, burning, and installing Windows 7 RC doesn’t work then the question will be – should I go back to Vista or just load up UBUNTU and get more familiar with it?

By Theo on Jul 4, 2009

Ahh patience – that’s always been my problem with installing stuff – especially operating systems. I think I’ll just walk away and do something productive for a while – with any luck it’ll be done by the time I get back…

Cheers for the advice.

By Slick on Jul 28, 2009

Mine stuck at 97%…it has an hour ago and still going…it’s the second time something happens with my installation.Firs tine it didn’t find some drivers (it didn’s say what drivers)….

By john on Jul 30, 2009

Glad we have the internet to sort these problems out, my Windows 7 RC is stuck at 21% as well when trying to install. MS should notify people when they ship the retail version that it may get “Stuck” at certain parts so they don’t quit the installation thinking it’s a failure…and as I’m typing this it JUST went to 22% YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Alex on Aug 2, 2009

Does this happen on any percent? Mine is stuck at 72% for about 3 hours now. any help?

By Dylan on Aug 3, 2009

mine is stuck at 0 %
but i think i wait !!
Cause you would never know what will happen next !!

By david on Aug 6, 2009

Just wanted to throw this out there. I’m installing RTM today and it got stuck at 89%. I restarted, it got stuck at 91%. Made me think it could be something with the dvd burn fighting with my drive or something. Anyway, I hit “eject” to pop out the disk, got the Windows error dialog for “disk cannot be found” or whatever, then put the disk back in and hit “Try Again” (not “Cancel” or “Continue”… I think this is really just Abort/Retry/Fail with lipstick) and viola! It sped along its merry way to 100% and beyond. Anyway, might be the same problem, might be different; just thought I’d throw it out somewhere for Google to find.

By defcon on Aug 8, 2009

Wow lol my install hung for 20-30 min and finally continued, thanks to this post I waited it out

By Bobby on Aug 15, 2009

Same thing here…RTM 64 bits stuck at 0% for over 2 hours both times. Turned to Google on my Mac and found this post…hit EJECT > TRY AGAIN and bingo, but it stalled again at 9% hit TRY AGAIN 3 times and then it made it to 100% – way to go M$.

By Andy P on Aug 16, 2009

Mine stuck at 62% for at least 20 hours. So I rebooted and rolled back to Vista. Windows 7: epic fail.

By sssssssop on Aug 19, 2009

24% win 7 x64 RTM… It’s crazy… Microsoft screwed up again. :/ Win 7 is a very good system, but instalation is pain in ass.

By michaelevans on Aug 20, 2009

Mine stuck at 62% for two weeks. Even with my Core i7 975 EE processor. I tried to load on my new computer and let it run before heading on vacation. Came home…still at 62%. Windows still sux. Welcome back to Vista, boys.

By Rudy on Aug 21, 2009

whew! thanks bud, i was about to reboot as well

By Yuvi on Aug 22, 2009

Guys just burn the image at 2.4X and then it wont freeze

I used ultraiso

By Navarr on Sep 11, 2009

Thanks! I was afraid it was going to stay there at 21%!

By Ralph on Sep 18, 2009

Jumping on the bandwagon. Mine has been stuck for 43 minutes now (RTM version)… still waiting. Sooo happy I didn’t reboot.

By MrMiyamoto on Sep 18, 2009

Mine’s sitting at 18%, but I’ll stay the course. Thanks muchly.

By andrew on Sep 20, 2009

me too! thanks for the heads up.

By adads on Oct 5, 2009

mine is stuck at 6%. thanks for the post, i’ll keep waiting.

By Randle on Oct 7, 2009

21% for the last 15 minutes… I’ll keep waiting!

I wish this was clearer! Even though it keeps changing the message, it isn’t that comforting without a progress bar!!

By Hydraulicjj on Oct 14, 2009

Mine just seems to stick at 0% and it’s done that a fair few times before it seems to me that this may be a bug or sumthing. I’m writing this on my iPod touch whilst I wait for about an hour:-/

By Dukester on Oct 15, 2009

Mine was stuck at 18% for about 45 min and then took off and finished. Thanks for the heads up. But now I’m waiting for the Transfering files..slow but making progress. Upgrading from Vista Business (64bit) to Windows7 Ultimate (64bit). Get a book or a drink or two

By xenover on Oct 21, 2009

Mine was stuck @ 18 % for like 20 minutes, but it’s going forward now

By Dan Pearce on Oct 22, 2009

Mine hung at 21% for about 30 minutes. It’s up to 34% now and actually expanding the windows installation files…fingers crossed!

Thanks for this post though! I was seriously considering restarting. MS should really have some kind of feed back on that page that says it might take a while. I am sure many are going to screw up their install by restarting at this point

By Pepper on Oct 22, 2009

Thanks..mine hung there for an hour..this post helped me a ton!

By Canuckerbird on Oct 23, 2009

In the process of installing home premium, mine hung at 21% for about half an hour and now it’s just finishing up. Hang in there people.

By Ben on Oct 23, 2009

Mine has been at 21% now for over 2 hours. If i try to cancel it the program responds saying that canceling right now would lead to system instability.. but it doesn’t seem to want to go past 21% still. Anyone have any other thoughts?

By heybarty on Oct 23, 2009

Yes, thank you for this foorum and this post. I was stuck on 0% for a long time. On a tip from here from David, and she zoomed along and finished expanding in under 5 minutes. Hope this helps somebody.

By Suzi on Oct 24, 2009

Stuck at 21% for over 4 hours and still waiting. I have pictures up at windows7computer.com.

sucks

By StevenS on Oct 24, 2009

Mine was stuck on 21% for 2 hours and then moved on.

By travcaust1c on Oct 25, 2009

alright, so i’m doing a clean install from a black drive to win7 home premium 64 bit (an upgrade edition). I’ve tried 32 bit and 64 bit, and almost every time it freezes at 14 or 15%. By freeze I mean the three little dots that move indicating the computer is doing anything have stopped moving. Is this the same kind of ‘stuck’ that you’re all getting? Or are those dots moving but the Number% isn’t? This has been a real dealbreaker for me, hoped win7 would be far easier.

By Federico on Oct 25, 2009

Oh guys, thanks to this article i didn’t restart my pc.

My pc has been stuck at 91% for about 20 min. Now it’s blocked at 92%, but I can hear the disk working.

Let’s wait…

By Jamie on Oct 25, 2009

Mine has been stuck at 21% expanding for 10 hours now. Does anyone think I should just give up?

By Mike on Oct 25, 2009

About 25 minutes for me at 21% and then it sped along. Stay the course! btw, the three dots were moving the whole time. They never stalled.

By Bassam on Oct 26, 2009

Thanks… been stuck at 21% for abt 20 mins now…

Hitting 22% will be awesome now since Ive waited soooo looong :D

By Chris Matthias on Oct 26, 2009

My upgrade is hanging now at 18%… I’m glad I found this blog post.. I was about to restart. I wanted to upgrade rather than clean install so I could see if I had any problems with it and some of my clients might run into similar problems. Shoulda started it earlier, though.

By Daniel on Oct 29, 2009

Just to add another success story, mine was stuck at 21% for a good 20 minutes, and I was starting to wonder. Found this post and left it, and its now speeding along comfortably. Thanks heaps!

By Zach on Oct 30, 2009

Upgrading from Vista Home Premium SP2 to Windows 7. I’m using the student deal, and it hung at 21% for about 15 minutes. Now it’s already at 55% and counting, so I urge you all to just stay patient.

By mosygold on Nov 2, 2009

Thanx for the very helpful info!

By Bill C on Nov 4, 2009

Upgrading from Vista Ultimate (upgrade, not a clean install) 32 bit …. mine also hung at 21 percent. I sure am glad that I found this site – it moved on after about 20 minutes. Im not sure at what point it is at now as I get to ‘anxious’ watching it (watched pot never boils, or something like that – I usually don’t use cliches, I avoid them like the plague)
Bill

By Jarmo Isotalo on Nov 6, 2009

I have the same problen whit HP’s vista to windows 7 upgrade. stuck in 21% for an hour. Try to take DVD out and put it back in. It helped in my case. Or it was just lucky coincidence… Wait people WAIT

By Curtis on Nov 8, 2009

Hey just wanted to say thank you. I was “hung up” at 18% and nearly lost my patience. This possibly saved me from ruining my computer. Thanks again. It’s going through the install now.

By Charan on Nov 9, 2009

Thx a lot ,was just going to give up after waiting for an hour or so stuck at 21% in college. Then i came across ur post and let it go along and after i read the last comment on this page it went to 23%. Dont give up!!!

By bill dorn on Nov 13, 2009

might was stuck on an hp g60-243cl laptop for over 10 hours on 21%. i finally just gave up.

By Bob on Nov 13, 2009

Thank you so much! I was waiting for about 40 minutes and saw the PC was frozen, so I aborted the upgrade. The HD was in a sorry state, so I am restoring it from an image now.

I will retry the upgrade and just leave the PC alone until it is covered in dust, if need be.
I wish that Microsoft would give more attention to their User Interface so people upgrading would not panic like I did.

Thanks again Gary!

By Power on Nov 15, 2009

Thanks for info. Found it as I was concerned that it was also stuck at 21% for over 30mins and was about to abort.

By Bob on Nov 15, 2009

You know, leaving the PC alone didn’t work. It was actually frozen. The tip-off is that the mouse will not move and the three dots that usually blink stop blinking.

This is what helped me:

1) There is an option to get updates from the Internet during install. Do not use it- you can always get updates later.

2) If setup tells you there are programs that might not work correctly after installation, get rid of them- all of them.

Steps 1 and 2 got me past the 21% problem and up to the final stage of install, where it got stuck again.

I am going to try a “Clean boot” as suggested at this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

and recommended here:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7install/thread/0c461e53-b6e5-41e2-87b0-ed6fa605f57d

By gaz on Nov 16, 2009

OMG !! Once agian rubbish install details by Microsoft, thank goodness for people like you guys im just gonna leave mine hanging ( stuck at 1% ) been here for 30 mins or more thanks guys

By i killed myself due to installing w7 on Nov 17, 2009

Woah my retail w7 takes 8hours to expand all files. But it finished! After the last reboot it gives an unexpected error that it can’t finish setup and says me to reinstall again. LOOOL 8hours wasted. (3times)

By Asa on Nov 20, 2009

Thanks for this site, I tried every OS windows had made, and spent weeks trying to get to this Expanding windows files … I sent back the motherboard and the ram and the CPU and it finally installed – well got to the expanding files section. Before that she wouldn’t even load startup screen. Am waiting very nervously … … …

By dan on Nov 26, 2009

i hung at 18% for a very very very long time, but it just started moving again. phewwww..

By Matt on Nov 27, 2009

By the time I got to the end of the comments it started up again (stuck for about 20min on 21%). On to 45% in the time it took me to type this message. I started my upgrade a t7:30am it is now 9:50

By Neil on Nov 27, 2009

I meant different CD “DRIVE”, not CD!

By Tina on Nov 28, 2009

Thanks so much for this post!!! Mine was stuck at 21% for about 3 hours. I was getting ready to kill it and start again until finding this post. I left it and once it got past the 21%, it moved pretty fast. Thanks!!!!

By d.m, on Nov 28, 2009

woah!I thought something was wrong with my disc
i left windows 7 install over night where it stuck at 10% for 2 and a half hours and in the morning it was 64%,gonna keep waiting as im typing this message windows is at 92% its installing second night :S

By CodeCowboy on Dec 1, 2009

For those who have posted about being hung on 62% do some further Google-ing on that specific percentage with the install. It seems that there are driver issues for those who get stuck on 62% for a long time.

By C-rock on Dec 3, 2009

Thanks for posting this! First hit when I googled it.

By Jake on Dec 4, 2009

Mine Acer notebook stuck at 0% for about 10 minutes but it passed 21% lol

By Vijay on Dec 5, 2009

while(!user_frusated)
{
printf(“Please wait…”);
wait(…);
printf(“Gathering additional information before expanding files”);
wait(…);
}

LOL..
Thanx for this site(and others also with similar info), I was about to restart, but stopped.. Mine moved ahead after 20 mins.

Thanks again…

By Ralph on Dec 8, 2009

I think windows should post a MSG saying it’s gonna be stuck for a while at this stage so people dont sit here staring at the computer for hours like stupid. Good thing I have Iphone so I searched and I eas here otherwise I was gonnx do the same

By osman on Dec 11, 2009

mine stuck at 18%. thanks for the post, I am relieved! I was so close to giving up!

By DiTi on Dec 11, 2009

Mine was stuck at 80%! for atleast 20 minutes, and it’s a bloody new and fast laptop!

By Darren on Dec 15, 2009

Jumping on the bandwagon…. I was just about to reboot after an hour of 21% but thought to Google it on my phone first. Thank god I did. After 5 minutes of reading through these comments it was on its merry way. Stick it out!

By Warren on Dec 16, 2009

I’m glad I waited the entire three hours out. What do Windows 7 and the healthcare reform bill have in common? They’re both freakin’ taking FOREVER!!!

By Robert on Dec 23, 2009

Thanks for posts Mine stuck on 14% for a day than I found that to unplug all external devices and still this same finally I took oun my wireless card out ant all went like charm from the beginning to the end.

By Robert on Dec 23, 2009

Thanks for posts Mine stuck on 14% for a day than I found that to unplug all external devices and still this same finally I took oun my wireless card out and all went like charm from the beginning to the end.

By pete on Dec 27, 2009

was stuck at 21% for along time thanksful to find this site well worth the wait !!!!

By Joey on Jan 3, 2010

Im installing win 7 pro 64 oem disk, and has froze at 26% 6 times for an hour and a half. Restarted the install and got stuck at 91% for 2 hours, once. I DO NOT have the patients for this. Tried 4 different RAM configurations, bios settings and reformatted 5 times. I know microsoft has an exurbanite amount of lawyers and piles of money…I don’t and will need to make this machine work in 2 days. WIN7 FAIL!!! will reinstall XP in 15 hours, and pawn this disk off to some poor loser.

By Yes on Jan 4, 2010

Oh, okay
mine has been stuck on 21% for a while now… I was about to give up hope, but I found this site, and my patience is renewed

By John Guy on Jan 4, 2010

I’m glad I’m not the only one!!! 15 minutes and waiting… Fingers crossed!!!

By Connor B on Jan 5, 2010

Even happened to me on a new system OEM install.

By Matt on Jan 6, 2010

IT DOES PASS!!! Tho mine sat there for an hour or so on the Home Premium upgrade with CS4 Master Collection, Office 07 Enterprise and other programs installed…4GB RAM, 2.9GHz dual core Intel, 512MB nVidiaM GeForce 9300M GS…

it’s working it’s magic )

By Tom on Jan 8, 2010

Thanks for the post…. I was getting worried, starting googling “vista upgrade stuck at windows expanding” and found this site. I was stuck at 21 % and cycling… By the time I read most of the posts, and then went back an looked, my upgrade had moved on. It seems to be working now.

By Tamara on Jan 24, 2010

Thanks so much for this post! I was seriously worried when mine stalled for an hour at 21% but it is going again. Yay! ( I’m upgrading to home premium on a Dell). So, don’t give up quickly if it happens to you.

By Early on Jan 26, 2010

See the trick is to look up the problem on the internet, find this page and read the comments. While you are reading, the installation will finally get past 21%. Just scroll up and see how many people this worked for. While I was reading on how to fix this problem, it jumped to 51%!

Glad I could help, you’re welcome for the tip.

By Jim on Jan 31, 2010

I waited forever at 18%. Read all posts, make a sandwich, go to the bathroom, take a shower, watch a season or two of some tv show, then when you go back and check… It will have moved…

By Traceoflife on Jan 31, 2010

Mine hangs at 21% if I have a piece of hardware installed that 7 does not have the native drivers for. This includes a Belkin wireless g card, an nvidia 5300 card and an inboard sound card.

I pulled the cards and disabled the sound in the bios and it flew. I propose that the process takes such a variying amount of because it is looking thru the entire DVD driver set for win 7 for each unsupported piece of hardware. The more you have the longer it takes. Just an idea.,

By Henry on Feb 2, 2010

There seem to be two distict issues here. One is that install hangs at 21% (but continues to show drive activity) and eventually reastarts the other, which I have experienced where it hangs at 21%, drive activity, screen and mouse freeze after about five minutes and then nothing – eight hours is the longest I’ve had the patience to wait – most times I reboot after an hour or two.
To suggest to this grouping that we should wait longer or alternatively follow the standard list of activities prior to install is not very helpful. Most of us got to the stage of a clean bill of health with the upgrade advisor half a dozen upgrade attempts ago. Every redundant usb driver has been deleted from my computer and I’ve even gone to the trouble of reverting to ps2 mouse and keyboard to avoid any usb devices being attached. I have the aqsolute latest drivers in every case.
I’ve long since given up trying to load windows 7 but now am left with the problem of a ‘restored’ Vista setup which does not function properly. Whilst windows rollback worked correctly on about a dozen failed install attempts, it froze repeated on my last one which means the windows bootup menu never reverts to normal and settings need to be remade.
Microsoft issued a quick fix for the 65% freezing issue but theres nothing for the 21% issue and this has been occuring for at least the last four months.
I would just like to get back to a properly working Vista version but can’t risk running windows 7 setup again – I might lose everything next time!

By painfully SLOOWWWW on Feb 3, 2010

As the last poster said… the trick is to find this page and read the entire thing and eventually it’ll pass
Mine did… and in a matter of 2 minutes jumped from 21 to 43 at this very second.

As I continue to type the count is still going up. The real issue I’m having now is that I need to leave at 6 PM and it’s 5:34. This is my personal laptop that I brought with me to work today but it doesn’t have a battery and I just don’t know…
Oh well. It’s at 52% now.

Signing off…

patience is a frakking virtue

54%

By No Namer on Feb 5, 2010

I experienced the 0% hang/got concerned…which prompted me to find this thread.

It did not hang past 0% but took forever to get to 1%. Just looked again…at 99%…hang in there!

By makkator on Feb 8, 2010

burn it with a proper program on lowest speed available … worked for me

By Jessika on Feb 17, 2010

Seriously, this site is some magic. I was stuck at 21% for close to 30 minutes, read all the comments, got to the bottom, looked over at the computer, and BAM. 38% and climbing.

By Ian on Feb 20, 2010

Damn… I wasn’t lucky… 18% at 30 minutes I gave up, hard buttoned my computer… Then I saw this site… Windowds 7 recovered from the last OS Win7RC… Now will try the install again… and will wait patiently this time.

By Nick on Feb 23, 2010

Thanks I started looking if more people had problems with it, because I was worrying something went wrong.
Your blog was the first hit, thank god!

By HawgRyder on Feb 26, 2010

Yahoo! Just as I found your blog, the darn thing kicked on and jumped to 36%. Now it’s 53%. I waited almost 40 minutes till I did a search and found ypur blog on the first hit. Thanks for posting.

By ErroX on Mar 1, 2010

Thanks for sharing this with the web .
Because the RC would expire today, I had downloaded an image from the technet website, unfortunately the installation hangs so far on 0%.

Total time on the installation so far; about 10 minutes. Hopefully it will jump to something other then 0 .

By ErroX on Mar 1, 2010

Hmm.. I quit the installation because I wanted to know whether it did something (for future purposes) and well it did copy in about 30 minutes something like 900 MegaByte (MB). So the installation does something during this awful long wait.

Also, I’ve disconnected all USB devices and turned off all unnecessary onboard devices (LAN, 1394 FW etc)

By ErroX on Mar 1, 2010

Okay, its started.. but not with my original dvd’s (tried with 2). I’ve burned another dvd using my Mac(Book) on 2.4x (disk utility, not Burn as burn only accepts 2 and 4x).

It boots up, and now already after about 2 minutes I am at about 27%. Thanks though for all your comments helped me alot!

By Matt Belanger on Mar 1, 2010

was actually already attempting burn at slower speed when i stumbled on this website….flew past the 62 mark and well on my way….errox ur prob might be ur burned it on mac….not sure tho….what program did u use?

By 7newbie on Mar 10, 2010

Thanks a ton .. I was about to give up on waiting while the system stuck at 21%, now it is progressing, after about an hour of waiting .. thanks a lot.

By Charlie on Mar 14, 2010

Were~ after 45 mins finally moved from 21% to 36% lol it’s move~

By Todd on Mar 22, 2010

Great Post…I was at 18% for about 40 minutes on a Vista to 7 upgrade…going now

By Elise on Mar 24, 2010

I was hanging at 18% for over an hour – found this post.

Someone in a previous comment mentioned unattaching peripherals…

So, I yanked out my USB external hard drive (usually a no, no – I realize)… and IMMEDIATELY it began to climb.

I’m at 68% and counting now… thanks for the initial post!

By Elise on Mar 24, 2010

… just an update… after I pulled out the USB external HD… and posted that… I just finished “Expanding Windows files” in less than 5 minutes!

WOO-HOO!

By Carnage on Mar 27, 2010

21% for an hour now its speeding through

By Chris on Mar 28, 2010

Great, about 20 mins and it shot up to 92%

By Boyo on Mar 31, 2010

Gary,

Sir, you are the man. I cannot imagine what sheetstorm would have engulfed me had I attempted to reboot at 18% heheh. Stuck there for about 15 minutes for me.

In general install not a great process. Lots of take it out, put in in, start again. Reminds me of my f.n wedding night!

At “compatibility report” I was instructed to remove DVD, restart and then reinsert DVD (ooh missus) and then it stuck at the 18%, then it went, then it said “Compatibilty report” again and please (you guessed it) remove, restart, dance in circle, reinsert. I then removed DVD and restarted, but did *not* reinsert the DVD again (did do the dance in circle tho) – it continued happily with the upgrade, stopping only for a brief pause of 20 minutes on “Transferring files…42%” and another at 62% complete with restart – well, we all need a break now and then. Altogether it took about 5 hours.

Now I am the happy owner of W7. My comment would be that it looks pretty much the same as Vista. Also, my wife will not be so happy when she sees I had to uninstall half her programs to get there. (What, you think I would trial a new OS on *my* PC?)

By mirza ahmed on Apr 4, 2010

hey just got scared also then i looked at this page and was feeling better took 38 minutes for me but right after i looked here it jumped to 69 % and then 94% this is great thx so much

By Russ on Apr 7, 2010

Wow it’s amazing how many people have this problem, mine was stuck for 30-45 mins at 21% now back on it’s way Great website btw, I was starting to get impatient!

By Abbas on Apr 9, 2010

Hi,

I have 3 Dell Optiplex 280 P4, win7 took 20 min approx for its complete installation on 2 pcs, and for the third one it is stuck at 11%….. and its more than a hour.. last night it was stuck to 42%… dont know what to do..

WHY?????????????????????????????????

By Mortsde on Apr 10, 2010

Thanks, for posting once again. I waited another 5 minutes and after visiting this page and it started up again…now to see if I get hung up anywhere else

By sander on Apr 21, 2010

mine has been stuck now for a while and since it started making weird as beeping noieses i decided to unplug the network cable, which stopped the beeping and made it continue…

By Thank YOU!!!! on Apr 25, 2010

Mine was stuck at 18% for over an hour, now it’s moving again…, at 55% already! Thanks for this great post, dude! Thank you!!!

By Varun on May 18, 2010

mine first got stuck at 94% than i restarted it stuck at 0% now i have deleted the partition it is again stuck at 94% … i guess i should wait.

By Stefan on Jun 5, 2010

Stuck at 18% and gathering more info for the last 2 hours……. I will let it sit overnight, if not I will do I clean install in the morning.
Help

By Nik on Jun 14, 2010

I guess at the start when the installation says it will take several hours to upgrade, it actually means it…

Mine was at 21% for an hour, and by the time i read through all these comments, browsed through catalogs i got in the mail, and went to the toilet a few times, it started moving again and is currently at 85%.. so although we’re not over the finish line just yet.. this particular “issue” seems to just be a test of patience. so i suggest to stick it out too.. unless of course you have been waiting for 2 weeks like a comment mentioned above.. that is seriously not even a duration microsoft would expect someone to wait for an upgrade!

and by the time i wrote this comment it moved from 85% to “transfering files, settings and programs”.. so stoked on that!

By Leeks on Jun 29, 2010

Mine was also stucked in 18% I saw one posting saying that this article helped processing for some reason, and it was true for me!! Stucked in18% for an hour, it was finally moving and now 82%!!! Before 18%, my disc was ejected cuz laptop was rebooted… I just put my disc back in and waited for an hour… Just wait my laptop didn’t make any sound , it means it’s not working as u know, however, I waited as other posts said. It was boring and painful but it worked!!! OMG 94% now! lol

By Mike on Jul 8, 2010

THANKS Gary for this; I was so frustrated at Microsoft, AND at myself for doing an upgrade rather than clean install…it sat at 21% for about 30 minutes, and now 5 minutes later is at 80%. Whew!

I agree that they need to have a bit more informative installer.

By jj on Jul 11, 2010

Hello All,

I wanted to share my experience in case it may be of value to anyone who is attempting to install Windows 7 and having the same issues I just rather suffered . . . and got around, I might add.

Alright, as background, I was attempting to install Windows 7 upgrade from XP on a 2009 thirteen inch (13″) macbook pro (MBP), 500 G hard drive, 8G ram. -in case anyone wanted to know.

I downloaded Windows 7 from Microsoft and stored it on a flash drive . . . later moved it to an external hard drive with plenty of space. I had read all kinds of posts online about people telling you how to use command prompt to partition a flash drive and then boost the speed of Windows 7 installation . . . none of that ever worked for me although I made a few attempts after having Windows 7 take forever.

Nevertheless, what ended up working was (a) clicking on the “devices” tab of parallels and disconnecting my floppy drive, internet network, and virtually anything else I could disconnect b/w my macbook and my virtual machine running XP; and (b) — I found those old temporary files under my “C” drive (they have funny looking names . . . really long names) — and I renamed them by adding an “-old” tag onto the file names so that Win7 wouldn’t (presumably) access these upon subsequent reinstallation attempts.

This worked out great. Whereas I had attempted many times — including the most recent attempt, which resulted only in the File Exapansion step stalling out at 27% for 10+ hours.

The fact is that if your installation is going to work out, it may take some time, but you should remember that it shouldn’t take 10 hours. When I made the above changes the installation took inside of an hour.

Here are my notes from this:
2:11 pm – 2:15 copy files . . . 2:15-2:16 restart and expand files . . . at around 2:25 pm I had 51% expansion and at 2:31 I was restarting again. by 2:38 the installation was getting finished. That is a heck of a difference b/w my previous attempts.

Seriously, if you’re waiting for 10 hours, you should consider disconnecting and shutting down non-essential programs (e.g., I also shut down my antivirus/firewal / Webroot) — and your installation might go a lot better.

Best regards to all.

By TC on Jul 11, 2010

THANK YOU to the person(s) who suggested install without finding the latest drivers and unplugging any un-needed USB devices. I was stuck at 32% for about a half hour, dots not moving. I started over, chose not to install latest drivers, and it’s moving right on through like a normal install. Thanks for a fantastic forum!

By TC on Jul 11, 2010

I mean, seriously, it took less time to completely install the second time than it did to wait stuck at 32% for a half hour! About 10 min and it’s now at Completing Installation. Worth it to go update drivers manually, at least you know what’s going on! Upgrading from XP to 32 bit Win 7, by the way, eMachine T3104.

By Gene on Jul 13, 2010

I was upgrading from Win 7 Home Premium to Win 7 Professional. Mine stuck at 15%. I left it overnight and it still hadn’t progressed. I shut down, did a system restore, then installed all Win 7 Home Premium updates and ran the update again with my antivirus and firewall turned off. Took less than 10 minutes to upgrade the second time.