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Issues installing Windows 8 due to GPT partition style error

We recently received a new Lenovo Carbon X1 Touch to setup for an employee. It arrived with the Home version of Windows 8 installed, so we proceeded to install Windows 8 Enterprise. First of all, if you haven’t seen the new Carbon X1 Touch, it is a beautiful, slim, touchscreen laptop. But it does not have a built in NIC card. You have to attach an ethernet dongle if you want to be hard-wired in to your network. This device does not allow for booting up to our Microsoft Deployment server. There is an additional driver required in order to do this. So, we decided to install the OS via USB. I created a bootable Windows 8 USB stick (Using ISO to USB; http://www.isotousb.com) and booted from the USB.

All seemed well until it came time to choose the partition on which to install Windows. I chose the OS partition and received this error:

“Windows cannot be installed on this disk. The selected disk is part of the GPT partition style.”

I started troubleshooting by choosing to format the OS partition. That did not work as I received the same error message. So what to do but start from scratch. I delete all of the other existing partitions, formatted again and attempted to install the OS. This did not work either: 

I rebooted, chose Repair at the initial install screen, and opened the command prompt. I ran the following diskpart commands: 

 

  1. diskpart
  2. list disk
  3. select disk “x” (this is the disk on which you want to install Windows)
  4. clean
  5. create partition primary
  6. active
  7. format fs = ntfs quick
  8. assign
  9. exit

I rebooted and started the installation again. I chose the partition I needed and was able to install Windows 8. If you run into this error, just perform the diskpart steps above. That should resolve the issue.  

 

 

 

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Disabling Outlook 2013 Add-Ins

If you use Outlook 2013 there are many new features such as the Outlook Social Connector. However, these add-ins load delay the time it takes for the app to launch. If you wish to disable some or all of these add-ins, it’s very simple:

 

Inside of Outlook go to:

  • File -> Options and select Add-Ins
  • At the bottom of the next window, you will see the option to Manage COM Add-Ins and Disabled Items. Click the Go button.
  • The next window lists all of your Add-Ins. You can uncheck all of them so that nothing loads at startup or you can select the things you really need.  After making your selection, click OK.

 

Close and reopen Outlook. You will notice that Outlook loads much faster.

 

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Windows 7 (with SP1): Cannot view Windows Features box or run Windows Updates

So yesterday one of our employees reported that he could not install IE9 or view the list of options in Windows features. I have encountered this issue before and was able to resolve it by downloading and running Microsoft’s System Update Readiness Tool. I ventured over to the Microsoft website and downloaded the tool (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20858) and ran it on the machine. As suggested, I checked the log located here C:\Windows\CheckSUR.log and found the list of Windows updates that had not been applied correctly. Instead of spending hours attempting to remove the offending updates, I popped in a Windows 7 (w/SP1) disk and re-installed the OS without reformatting the hard disk. You can accomplish this if you select Upgrade instead of Custom installation. Although you’re not really upgrading, re-installing the OS repairs the system files. After repairing the OS, we could install Windows updates and access the Windows Features window. This may not be the best solution for everyone but in this case, the user was able to get back to work quickly and help his clients.