• TechBlog: Vista followup: Rethinking AVG
  Dwight plays around with cutting down his Vista startup times.
  (tags: Boot Performance )
• Simple guide to test Vista SP1 RC1 on a separate partition
  Long Zheng describes a nice way to test SP1 without affecting your current install.
  (tags: SP1 Partition )

Long Zheng describes a nice way to test SP1 without affecting your current install. Keep reading →

Consider the following scenario. You have a Windows Vista-based computer. An image that the manufacturer created was used to install Windows Vista. The manufacturer used the System Preparation (Sysprep) tool to create this image. The computer’s hard disk drive is partitioned into two or more partitions. The partition on which Windows Vista is installed is larger than 40 gigabytes (GB). Additionally, the size of the partition is a multiple of 4 GB. You run Windows Vista Setup. You delete the existing partition on which Windows Vista is installed. You try to create a new partition. In this scenario, you may receive an error message that resembles the following:

Windows installation encountered an unexpected error. Verify that the installation sources are accessible, and restart the installation. Error code: 0xE0000100

In Windows Vista, Windows ReadyDrive does not work if the first partition of a hybrid hard disk drive has less than 32 megabytes (MB) of free space. When this problem occurs, the operating system does not recognize the hybrid hard disk drive. Instead, the operating system uses this disk drive as a traditional disk drive.

When you try to upgrade a computer to Windows Vista, the upgrade option is not available. You may receive a message that resembles the following:

Upgrade has been disabled.
To upgrade to Windows, the hard disk partition must be formatted as NTFS. To reformat the partition, cancel the installation, open a Command Prompt window, and then type c: /fs:ntfs.

When you try to install Windows Vista, you cannot select the Upgrade option that is located in the Install Windows dialog box. Additionally, you receive the following error message in the dialog box:

Upgrade has been disabled

- Your upgrade partition has multiple operating systems

When you try to install Windows Vista, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• The hard disk on which you want to install Windows Vista is not listed.
• You cannot select a hard disk partition on which to install Windows Vista.
• You cannot format a hard disk partition or partitions.
• You cannot set the correct size for a hard disk partition.
• You receive the following error message:
  

  Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation

When you try to install Windows Vista, the hard disk partition on which you want to install Windows Vista appears on the Where do you want to install Windows? disk configuration page as expected. However, when you click this hard disk partition, and then you click Next, you receive an error message that resembles the following:

Error: uncaught exception: (failed UI_ASSERT).

In unattended installations of Windows Vista that have multiple partitions on the hard disk drive, the first partition is not assigned driver letter C as expected. Also, Windows Vista is installed on a different partition.

If you use Microsoft Windows XP to create a new partition on a computer that has both Windows XP and Windows Vista installed, the partition that hosts Windows Vista may disappear.