Windows setup could not configure windows to run on this hardware message during repair install

Anonymous

Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64

I am trying to do a repair install of Windows 7 Ultimate which came pre-installed on the system, but every time I run windows setup, it gets 99% done, and is at the completing setup phase and suddenly pops up with a message saying windows can not be run on my current hardware. Setup then does a rollback of widows. This is absolutely ridiculous.... I am attempting to reinstall the SAME version of windows that was already on the system! Windows 7 Ultimate has been on the system since the day it rolled off the factory assembly line. I have triple checked to make sure the image I am using to do a repair install is x64. I have checked to make sure the image is not corrupted by doing a test install on a fresh drive in another PC. that time I got as far as asking for the license key before I stopped (because I didn't have a license for that PC). I did find a support article on the dell support site surprisingly enough (why not the M$ support site too?) that said to press shift+F10 and start c:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe manually. which I tried, but when I started msoobe manually, I got as far as the screen that askes me about default IE security settings, then the screen went almost black. anyone just seeing the screen might think that the backlight had just turned off. you could dimly see the dialogs on the scree showing, but not well enough to see what you could select. the only thing that was clearly visible, and proved that the backlight for the display was indeed still active, was the mouse cursor was still clear as day. I tried restarting my pc, hoping I could pick up where I left off, but windows setup did a rollback instead. I don't know if a recent update is causing this, or if it is caused by the damage to windows I am trying to repair. I have never ever, in all my years of using windows encountered this message. the fact that it appears to not have an error code associated with it makes it all that much harder to diagnose. what can I do?

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Anonymous

2018-08-29T02:03:35+00:00

ok, got my tunnel back up and running again. even though there are still those network interface errors when I use ipconfig /renew6 or /release6.

One thing remaining. when Windows setup finally ran successfully, it removed some of the desktop icons which were linked to a junction (windows setup removed the non-default junctions). I thought I could go back and retrieve them from windows.old. but no windows.old was made after setup was finished. is it only windows 10 that does that, or does windows 7 keep those files elsewhere?
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Anonymous

2018-08-29T03:24:13+00:00

Hi,

I'm pretty sure the Windows.old began with Windows 8...

I did find two files on C:\ that have residual files\folders...

I didn't see any desktop icons or such, but didn't look that close...

The files are... C:$InPlace-TR and C:$Windows-Q

Guess what... after restarting my machine the files are gone...

The Junction Points you mentioned creating... I have read a number of posts suggesting they cause problems with upgrades...

Do you suppose it is possible that the change from AHCI to IDE broke them, and allowed the Upgrade\Repair to run ?
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Anonymous

2018-08-29T04:37:16+00:00

guess I will have to recreate those missing files. they are just shortcuts for some games, so it's not that big of a deal. only a minor annoyance

the junctions did not break from the changing of the controller drivers. in windows 10, all but one of the builds I have used, preserved user made junctions when running an in-place upgrade (repair install). Windows 7 setup doesn't normally preserve them. probably the same way for vista and win8. normally when a repair install is done, a backup of the previous install and files removed from that setup are made so you can roll back. historically, I thought windows.old was used, dating back to windows 95 days. when you run disk clean-up, there is an option for cleaning up those files. but for some reason, those files never got made this time. for you as well apparently.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/971760/how-to-restore-a-windows-7-based-computer-to-a-previous-windows-install

appearently the files are present on my system *SOMEWHERE* because the diskcleanup option for "files discarded by windows upgrade" are taking up 2.80 Gb. that's a sizable amount of files for a directory that is not showing up.
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Anonymous

2018-08-29T04:47:21+00:00

Hi,

I don't recall ever seeing a Windows.old folder in Windows 7, but then I don't do many upgrades\repairs with it either... I have a bunch of images from various points in time that I just reload..

There is definitely a Windows.old folder after upgrading from 7 to 8 or 10...

I just ran another upgrade\repair... The folders I mentioned before are back, and are not disappearing this time... Maybe because I didn't disturb them..

BTW... 172 Important Updates @ 1.2GB...

Including two monthly Rollups , and two .Net Framework Rollups...
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Anonymous

2018-08-29T04:48:14+00:00

try typig this command at an admin cmd prompt and tell me if you get any results -- "dir /a:d /s windows.old"
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