Windows 7 has now officially been out for more than 2 weeks and things are settling down now. Overall things have gone very smoothly not only for Windows 7 but also Microsoft with the opening of their new stores. However, as is with any new operating system release there are bound to be small hiccups, or in this case hanging during an upgrade.

The issue is that while a user is upgrading their machines from Windows Vista to Windows 7, the computer will hang at 62%.  The install at this point will then revert itself back to Windows Vista. While it is an extremely small percentage of people having this problem I am sure that many of them will appreciate knowing how to fix it.  Here is how to fix it according to Microsoft:

To resolve this problem yourself, follow these steps:

1. Restart the computer. Then, your computer will roll back to Windows Vista.
2. Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
3. On the Advanced tab, click Environment Variables.
4. Under System variables, click New.
5. Type MIG_UPGRADE_IGNORE_PLUGINS in the Variable name field.
6. Type IphlpsvcMigPlugin.dll in the Variable value field.
7. Click OK three times to close the dialog boxes.
8. Start the upgrade installation again.

Of course there is also the Microsoft Fix It utility that you can run and it will do all of this for you, download it here. The fix is in english but you can use it on any language version of Windows Vista. If your upgrade is freezing at a percentage other than 62% it is not related to this issue.

Check It Out> Microsoft

One of the worst things when it comes to any operating system is when there are components of it that are broken and an easy solution is nowhere in sight. Not everyone has the skill level to be able to manually repair things like Winsock Catalogs, Internet Explorer, Windows Update or any of the other Windows components that inevitably break within Windows. While companies like Geek Squad have their own automated solutions for fixing these types of problems, where does that leave the rest of us?

Welcome to Windows Online Troubleshooting Service or WOTS for short. The idea is to quickly reset or repair Windows components. This is something Windows users have been waiting a long time for and are finally getting it. This new feature of Windows 7 is still not getting much attention, mostly because it is buried in the Help section. And as most of us know, no one actually reads help files. Even technicians really don’t want to have to dive into the help section of Windows to actually repair a problem. We want a quick easy way to access the repair components without being treated like this is our first time using a computer.

WOTS basically consists of Windows Power Shell scripts that repair a computer. The actual scripts themselves are located in “C:\Windows\diagnostics” and you can manually launch each of them by going into the repair category directories and double clicking on DiagPackage.diagpkg. Upon launching the scripts it will diagnose if there is a problem and if one is found, attempt to repair it.

To make this even easier I have created shortcuts that can be kept on a flash drive and used without actually having to manually navigate to this directory and launch the scripts. Of course you can always try to navigate the help file and accomplish the same tasks, it will just take a few dozen more steps to get there.

>>>Download Windows 7 Internal Diagnostic Shortcuts (Sounds better than WOTS)

But what about a Windows Vista repair solution? A team at Microsoft has been hard at work for many months now to be able to take care of Vista users as well. Simply called “Microsoft Fix it” this is a whole collection of repair tools that will automatically repair components of Windows Vista. Many of the fixes also work with Windows 7 and Windows XP but at least at this point they are focusing on Windows Vista as Windows 7 now has WOTS. The Fix it applications can be downloaded and saved to your flash drive for when you need them most.

Check It Out> Microsoft Fix it