Windows Vista installation and disaster recovery

The system will be changed during the Windows Vista upgrade process, and the computer is in an unstable state for most of the duration of the process. If the installation is not complete or the upgrade fails, you can use rollback to automatically recover from this event. This course describes how to roll back and make recommendations for disaster recovery if the rollback is unsuccessful.

I. Related components

1. New employee training for Windows XP: Data loss/Data recovery discussion

Before continuing troubleshooting, it is important to determine whether the customer has critical data that is not backed up on this computer.

Keeping your customer's data is your primary priority. Data loss can have a serious negative impact on customer support experience and on Windows and Microsoft satisfaction, and there is no need for data loss to be anything worse. Therefore, before troubleshooting, make sure you have a clear understanding of the possible consequences of each operation. If you are unsure whether a troubleshooting step will result in data loss, get help to verify the security of the operation before continuing.

Refer to this important topic in the new employee training materials for Windows XP.

2. Installation Roll Back

The first action to take when a critical error occurs during installation is a rollback. If you fail to reach the Firstboot phase when you upgrade to Windows Vista, Setup automatically triggers a rollback to roll back to the previously installed operating system. For more detailed information about rollback, refer to the "Cancel Installation" section in the following topics of Vista support training:

Installation – Installation process

Points:

Once the installation has entered the first boot phase, the rollback is no longer available.

If the installation fails, an error message is displayed. To troubleshoot after this, log this error message. When you click OK, the system restarts automatically. If the computer hangs during installation, you may need to restart the computer manually. To cancel the installation on reboot, select rollback from the boot loader.

3. Installation process

The process of upgrading to Windows Vista may be interrupted at different stages. In each phase, personal data and settings are moved between folders. Therefore, before any troubleshooting, you should familiarize yourself with the installation phase first.