Tech Blog

Category: Windows

Did anyone else have any Win 7 issues last night?

Two machines at my house went belly-up Wednesday night -- both of them running Windows 7 -- on the eve of the launch of Microsoft's new operating system.

One was a desktop PC. The other was a Win7 installation in the Boot Camp partition of a Macbook Pro.

I'm reluctant to blame it all on Microsoft, but it seems a little odd to just be coincidental.

I'm still not sure what fubared the Macbook. The way Boot Camp partitions work makes it tough to diagnose. Windows attempts to boot, fails with a quickly-flashed blue screen, the Boot Camp reboots and launches OS X. No amount of repairing seems to fix it. A reinstall is probably necessary.

My desktop PC repeated many of the same symptoms. But it offered a clue. Because it didn't have Boot Camp to contend with, the failed boot and subsequent reboot got stuck at a prompt at which I'd ordinarily be able to select between Win 7 and my old Win Vista installation or to "Set Up Windows."

Since Win 7 was missing as an option, and I didn't want Vista, I chose "Set up." Windows started to boot, then failed with a black screen and a warning that a Microsoft update failed and would have to be reverted.

Okay. I rebooted. That failed, too, with a request to insert my original Windows 7 installation disk. I did, rebooted again, and -- like magic -- Win 7 was back.

My PC is functioning again, but I'm wondering what will happen when the next update installs overnight. We'll find out in the morning. More disconcerting is the fact that my Boot Camp installation appears completely unrecoverable.

I guess, once I'm reinstalled, it's time to test out that new Windows 7 feature that helps you create a back-up disk image of your drive. After my glowing review, I didn't think I'd need it this soon.

Anyone else running the trial of Vista notice anything odd?