Upgrade?

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kierz521 said:
what happens if i install windows vista as an upgrade instead of a clean
install?
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This has been covered in detail in other posts.

What is this an upgrade to?

If this is an upgrade to a test system with no real user data on it, you
will get an inferior installation, but it's something that needs to be
tested, so do it. It is far better to do a clean install of Vista on a
freshly formatted partition.

If this is an upgrade to a production system with all your data on it, don't
do it. Read all the horror stories on this news group from people who
upgraded their XP production systems to Vista, got their Vista systems
corrupted to the point they will no longer function, and want to restore XP.

If you do an upgrade of your production XP account there is a very large
chance that you will lose your data. There is no uninstall for Vista, and
no path for returning to XP. The uninstall consists of reformatting the
partition and doing a clean install of XP. If you want to install Vista on
your production machine, create a new partition and install it there in a
dual boot configuration, do not upgrade a production OS

Also keep in mind that Vista does not use boot.sys, it has it's own Vista
boot manager which will be installed on your XP partition. If you remove
Vista, you will have to either reconfigure the Vista boot manager to boot
XP or you will have to remove the Vista boot manager, and get boot.sys
working again. A number of users have been unable to find boot,sys when
they
wanted it, so back it up somewhere that you can find it if you need another
copy.

Todd
 
First of all, you can upgrade from Windows XP SP2 to Vista x86, no support
for upgrades to Vista x64 and no upgrade paths to Vista x64 presently. When
you upgrade to Vista from XP SP2, your applications and personalized
settings are preserved.

A Warning to potential Upgraders:

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 to get feedback on what's wrong with the
product in such scenarios.

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 post with 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. 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 a "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
 
I'll give you my experience.

I upgraded my home system with everything on it...I had to uninstall a few
programs and disable a thing or two to get it to actually go through (it
won't install if there are critical conflicts). After that it was a 4 HOUR
install...I'm serious...3.4ghz machine with 1GB of ram and it took that
long. when it was finally done, I had issue after issue. Windows explorer
(which is now SEPERATED from explorer (thank god) kept restarting 20 times
on boot. I couldn't browse folder contents, or change user info, control
panel, etc. It was a total mess.

So then I reinstalled, telling vista to install to a NEW location. I like
how it did this. It moved all my old data to windows.old (which included my
documents, program files, and the actual old windows directories) and
installed into c:\windows proper. Oh, except for "my pictures" which it
moved to an old copy of "pictures".

After I finished the installation (which took FAR less time), everything
worked like a charm (except sound, which was fixed when realtek came out
with brand new beta drivers yesterday). I DID learn that if you make
Firefox your default browser, you have issues in vista...things hang and
don't work right. Making IE the default broswer again and rebooting fixed
the problem immediately.

So it was simply a matter of copying data from the windows.old directory to
their new respective homes. the only thing I lost was my old thunderbird
email and firefox bookmarks, which was my fault for not using mozbackup to
back it up first. I did keep my contacts, though, as vista found those and
put them in a handy "contacts" directory for me (an old one, but cut and
paste worked fine).

Don't forget, you get 1 year antivirus free from CA antivirus for being a
beta tester. Trend Micro has an option too, but I didn't look into it. CA
caught a nasty lil polipos.a virus moving files off my laptop (gotta stop
using limewire..lol!) so I'll stick with that.

Hope that helps!
 
A number of users who have had successful installs of Vista Beta 2 have had
their system suddenly become unusable.

Now, while you still can, would be a good time to back up your data which
Vista has already saved for you in windows.old and pictures folders.

Todd
 
Hi,

I'm new into the Vista trial, so can you expand a bit on the CA virus
How do I get this as I'd like to make sure all the problems are mine or
Vista and not a virus

Mike
 
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