Clean install or upgrade?

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Guest

I have backed up all the data on my Boot drive to a new I: drive and changed
the boot order in the BIOS to be sure it would boot up okay, and it did. I
then formateded the former C: drive and did a clean install of Vista,
everything went fine except for a problem with my RAID controller, which I
fixed with a driver update.

Vista does not recognize any of my old programs including Office 2007 beta.

My Question is should I restore the Vista C: drive with all the data from
the new drive and then do an upgrade install, saving the new drive with all
the old XP data, and then if I have a problem restore or replace the Boot
drive?

Seems like there would be am eaiser way to do this that I am missing.

Thanks for any help here!!
 
A lot of persons are contemplating about upgrading their one and only,
production
install of XP. If you are itching to do that, DON'T! DO NOT upgrade your
existing install of XP if you use it for work or you use it on a daily
basis. Not because Vista is at BETA 2 means its ready for prime time or
production environments, it is for testing and to get feedback on what's
wrong with the product.

I also suspect some persons think Vista has been finalized, no its not, its
still in development. I know Vista looks enticing and all, but it is still
not ready for prime time and the numerous reports of unsuccessful,
problematic clean installs, upgrades are proof of that.

If you want to try upgrade scenarios at least make sure you do it on a spare
installation of XP, you have a back up image of your existing install or
simply do a clean install on a separate drive or logical partition. For
those who have already upgraded their installations of XP and want to return
to XP, your only option is to format that drive and reinstall it. There is
no way to uninstall Vista.

Also, there are no upgrade paths from Windows XP Professional x64 to Vista
x86 or x64. You cannot launch Vista x64 setup in Windows XP x86 or you will
get an "invalid Win32" error. You have to boot off the DVD.
--
--
Andre
Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
 
Because you took the time and effort to actually do the whole thing
correctly, do yourself a favor and play with Vista for a while. Yes you will
have to install the programs, but that's part of the test and oh so much fun.
 
Mark,

Thank you for the insightful reply; it was helpful in understanding the
process. I guess I could have phrased my question differently, so let me try
again.

Now that I have a mirror image of my XP boot drive on another drive, is it
safe to restore my original boot drive with the data from the mirrored drive,
and install Vista as an upgrade? Will this recognize all the programs and
data on my other drives and will I be able to restore if I decide to replace
the Vista drive with my mirrored XP drive?

I know reinstalling all the old software is part of the process of testing
but I am about as unorganized as a person can be, so finding it all will take
more time than it’s worth to me. This is my most powerful machine and also
has XP MCE so I wanted to test it here. I have 4 other computers and most of
my data is backed up one those, so if I crash it not that big a deal.

Has anyone tried this process?

Thanks again for your help!


Mark, Thank you for the insiteful
 
Yes, it is possible to upgrade from Windows XP Home/Professional to Vista
Beta 2 32-bit (not 64-bit). When you do this, all the previous loaded
programs come along for the ride, but there is no guarantee that all of them
will work with Vista. There have been many success and many failures.

But I would add one step before you do so, since I am paranoid about data
loss: if at all possible, back-up your back-up image to some location other
than the same physical hard-drive even though it is in a separate partition.
I keep mine on a USB dirve. This way, when things are literally on fire, you
will have suffered no loss other than mental disorders.

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
A lot of persons are contemplating about upgrading their one
and only, production
install of XP. If you are itching to do that, DON'T! DO NOT
upgrade your existing install of XP if you use it for work or
you use it on a daily basis. Not because Vista is at BETA 2
means its ready for prime time or production environments, it
is for testing and to get feedback on what's wrong with the
product.

I also suspect some persons think Vista has been finalized, no
its not, its still in development. I know Vista looks enticing
and all, but it is still not ready for prime time and the
numerous reports of unsuccessful, problematic clean installs,
upgrades are proof of that.

If you want to try upgrade scenarios at least make sure you do
it on a spare installation of XP, you have a back up image of
your existing install or simply do a clean install on a
separate drive or logical partition. For those who have already
upgraded their installations of XP and want to return to XP,
your only option is to format that drive and reinstall it.
There is no way to uninstall Vista.

Also, there are no upgrade paths from Windows XP Professional
x64 to Vista x86 or x64. You cannot launch Vista x64 setup in
Windows XP x86 or you will get an "invalid Win32" error. You
have to boot off the DVD.
--
--
Andre
Windows Connected | http://www.windowsconnected.com
Extended64 | http://www.extended64.com
Blog | http://www.extended64.com/blogs/andre
http://spaces.msn.com/members/adacosta
Click to expand...
Just in case no one has said this - Thanks for all your work and
information.

Top
 
Thanks again Mark,

Being as paranoid as you, my backup was to a new 200 GB SATA HD, and not a
partition on an existing drive. I intend to disconnect this new drive from
the system while attempting the upgrade and pending failure of the tests, I
felt like I could just reinstall the new drive with the backup of XP MCE and
all would be back to normal.

I guess I just wanted someone to confirm my thoughts before I jumped in feet
first. The only drawbacks I could see is if Vista somehow changed the way the
system boots or made some other changes that would prevent me from installing
the backup drive and loosing the use of the machine without a total reformat
and reinstall of the entire system.

Thanks Again!
 
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