Many users are facing Windows 7 upgrade errors while trying to upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista. System gets rebooted or restarted regularly, which causes upgradation failure with repeated system restarts. Few times people get a error message about the failure upgrade to Windows 7 and the previous version, i.e. Windows Vista gets restored. Since many users upgrade their systems from XP to Vista first using direct in place upgrade, it’s annoying when they can’t get Vista upgraded to Windows 7.

This version of Windows could not be installed, Your previous version of Windows has been restored, and you can continue to use it.

People are getting the above error message after the failure up-gradation. But once the system gets restarted it will start showing the above message and so on. Every time your system will get restarted automatically and shows the above error message. This makes the whole upgrading process failure and the system gets unstable because of continuous restarts.

The actual reason behind this upgradation failure is unknown as of now. But once you have started the upgradation process, your system’s Boot Configuration Database (BCD) modifies itself to make Windows 7 as your default operating system. Since the upgradation goes failure, the system restores Vista on your system, but BCD configuration does not change and it tries to make Windows 7 your default operating system and proceed to Windows 7 set up process again. This way your computer gets restarted repeatedly. This problem is happening with Vista RTM, SP1 and SP2.

You can easily get rid of this problem by modifying the BCD entry and making Windows Vista your default OS. Once you have changed the BCD values, it will accept Vista as your default OD and will start to operate normally.

Fix Repeated System Restarts after Windows 7 Upgrade Failure

1. Turn on or Restart your system
2. You should see a initial boot menu during system start up (Press F8 if you don’t see it), choose Windows Vista instead of Windows 7 setup
3. Insert Windows Vista set up file (help : download Windows Vista SP2 ISO) and exit the set up process when the installation menu appears
4. Navigate to Start >> All Programs >> Accessories >> right click on Command Prompt icon >> click Run as Administrator
5. Type X:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All in the command prompt area hit Enter (Replace X with the correct drive where you have inserted the Windows Vista media CD/DVD)
6. Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect
7. You are done.