I started the upgrade on my Dell Laptop using an ISO from Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. It seemed to start OK, the big clock display got to 6% so I walked away. I returned to find a blank screen with a working mouse cursor. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del brings up the normal options (note this is still W7), and some do work, but selecting Task Manager goes back to the blank screen.
It will boot OK into safe mode, but I can't upgrade from there. I've tried most of the other options in the F8 boot menu, including Startup Repair, System Restore, low res, etc. Same problem, I get Welcome, then blank.
Any ideas?
[Edit - I don't think the following is related, it hasn't happened again]
While I was typing this I got an error dialog, not sure if this is related as it's been on for 10 minutes:
RunDLL
There was a problem starting C:Windowssystsm32WerConCpl.dll
Access is denied
Perhaps this belongs on the Windows 7 forum, but I'm wondering if I can do a repair install of Windows 7 Pro?
Only problem is that I no longer have the legal ISO I downloaded from Digital River (now removed), and the Microsoft Software Recovery says my Product Key is not valid for English!
[Later] Tried booting my original Windows 7 Pro (not SP1) DVD, and no Repair option other than the ones on the F8 boot menu.
Update on this.
Still no luck, but I have created another Administrator account, no change. However, it does confirm that the blank screen I'm seeing is the Desktop background, the new one is blue.
I've also tried to force it to AutoPlay the upgrade DVD when I insert it using NoDriveTypeAutoRun 0x91, but perhaps I missed something, or it won't work with the PC in the current state.
You have a Zotac ZONE GeForce GT 240 1GB which is actual l a Nvidia chipset so give this a try.
Disable Zotac ZONE GeForce GT 240 1GB in Device Manager. Try the upgrade to Windows 10. Several people have reported this allowed them to upgrade then install the Windows 10 driver and all is well.
The GeForce GT 240 is in a different computer, this is my Dell laptop.
Note to self: try resetting locating user folders to defaults, see Windows cannot be upgraded if any of system folders is located outside the system drive C:
NopeNote to self: try resetting locating user folders to defaults...
I had a brainwave, I changed:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrentVersionWinlogon so the Shell entry pointed to W:setup.exe rather than explorer.exe (W: is my DVD drive, with the Windows 10 ISO loaded).
What happened is interesting. When I booted normally, blank Desktop so no change.
However, booting in Safe Mode caused the Windows 10 install to run, then fail (as I was in Safe Mode). This means that the registry key above is not getting accessed when I boot normally, or explorer.exe in Windows is corrupted.
I tried to copy explorer.exe from SysWow, but no luck. I did copy it as explorerwow.exe and changed the above entry to point to it. Didn't work, but I'm not sure if this is because it lost properties on the way.
Does this offer any clues?
[Update]
Still no luck. I've tried putting shortcuts to explorer.exe and cmd.exe in the Startup folder, zilch.
Any other things I could try before I start from scratch?
For example, can I insert an entry into the registry Run section?
