All's Well That Ends Well--Installing Vista Installing and Upgrading Vista Discuss All's Well That Ends Well--Installing Vista in the Windows Vista forums; Hi Friends: I had a strange round of events over Monday/Tuesday of this week. My NVIDIA 8800 GTS 640MB was scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. I had noticed a ...

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Hi Friends:

I had a strange round of events over Monday/Tuesday of this week. My NVIDIA 8800 GTS 640MB was scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. I had noticed a pretty minor degradation in performance in my system using PassMark's Performance Test. So, I set out to try to regain the performance before installing my new card.

My drive showed minor fragmentation given a scan by the most current Vista-ready version of Perfect Disk (PD). Not trusting PD, I used the Vista defrager. Also, I used the Vista disk cleaner. After I was done, my performance was worse. Strike one.

PD virtually always says that one (at least me) needs to do an offline defrag. So, even though I do not trust PD, I set out to do one hoping that I could remedy my performance "problem." While not the first time I have had this experience, PD would not do the offline defrag. So, that's strike two.

Next, I decided to do a repair install. Mind you I never have had a significant problem as the result of an upgrade or a repair install. Well, the repair install got to about 22%-files expanded, tried to restart as expected, and then hung up--trying to restart apparently forever. Having no choice I shut down with the power button and restarted to see where I was. Strike three. Was I out. Well, maybe.

When I restarted, the installer acted like it was going to finish the install, but eventually I decided it was just going to sit forever on 23% expanded. So, I shut down using the power key again and restarted. Strike four. Ouch!!!

This time, to my surprise, I was given the opportunity to do a roll back to my installed Vista system--which I gladly accepted. The roll back was successful, but, of course, my system performance was no better. Still four strikes.

So, I tried the repair install again. This time it was successful. But, strangely, my system performance was even worse--something that I had never experienced previously having done a repair install. Strike five. Surely, I am out???

Not being satisfied I decided to go back to one of my Acronis True-Image-made disk images. I have two versions. The first one was made immediately after my initial clean install of my purchased Vista--with only a few essential programs installed. The second was a follow up made after all my usual software was installed.

I decided to go all the way back to the first-made image--thinking I would end up eventually with the best possible install. All seemed to be going well, but Acronis indicated an error, and I could not install that image. Strike six. The number of strikes now suggests that I have struck out twice.

So, I tried my last option before doing a new clean install--installing the second image. Acronis indicated four errors and could not install the image. Wondering what to try next, I did four carriage returns, a small light appeared in the center of the screen, and, low and behold, Acronis started installing the image. So, now I am wondering if my image really is being installed. If so, then its a home run rather than two strike outs.

After about 40 minutes the image, with all of my usual software ready to go, was installed perfectly. And, the system is an incredible performer. I tested it using PassMark and recorded record-breaking scores for my system. The restored image produced a system that is faster than when I did my clean install in the first place. So, instead of two strike outs, I ended up with two home runs.

I knew that there must be some computer-related morals to this story somewhere. Here they are. The Boy Scout's Motto--"Be Prepared." And, the old saw, "if at first you don't succeed, then try, try again."