Upgrader - I am having the same problem as you. Install of Vista Ultimate
gets to the Gathering Files stage and ends when it gets to 32% with a
"Windows installation encountered an error and cannot continue" message. In
your post dated 10/7/2006 you said that you must have been experiencing a bug
in the installation routine because you suceeded in completing an upgrade.
Did you do anything specific before the upgrade worked. Or was it a matter of
keep trying and it eventually worked. I've run the advisor over my system and
uninstalled anything which could potentially cause a problem. The only thing
I haven't installed is the McAfee Anti-Virus software and the Sygate Personal
Firewall software. However, I did disable both of these before starting the
upgrade. Any help would be appreciated. I'd rather not go down the clean
install routine!!

"Upgrader" wrote:

> After cloning my HD for the purpose, I attempted to upgrade my WinXP SP2 to
> Vista Ultimate RC1. The process proceeds normally, entering the product key,
> etc, and completes the "Copying Windows files" phase successfully. However,
> about 32% of the way through the "Gathering files" phase, it throws up the
> message, "Windows installation encountered an error and cannot continue,"
> whereupon the process terminates and I'm back to my WinXP desktop. I went
> through this twice, with the error occurring in the same place both times. So
> I then reburned my RC1 DVD iso file (for which I've checked the hashes) and
> tried upgrading my XPsp2 again, only to have exactly the same failure in the
> same place during "Gathering files."
>
> My system meets all of the criteria for Vista Capable, is in very good
> running order and quite clean, and I had disabled my
> antivirus (AVG) before attempting the upgrade.
>
> What could be my problem here?