Dorango said:
No it won't, you can do an in-place upgrade from Vista > Win7 but it
is not the recommended method.
Not recommended by whom, precisely?
Granted, some people will always blindly recommend that one always
perform a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS.
For the most part, I feel that these people, while usually well-meaning,
are living in the past, and are either basing their recommendation on
their experiences with much older operating systems, or are simply
inexperienced and uninformed.
Certainly, there are times when an in-place upgrade is
contra-indicated:
1) When the underlying hardware isn't certified as being fully
compatible with the newer OS, and/or updated device drivers are not
available from the device's manufacturer. Of course, this condition also
causes problems with clean installations.
2) When the original OS is corrupt, damaged, and/or virus/malware
infested. I've also seen simple, straight-forward upgrades from WinXP
Home to WinXP Pro fail because the computer owner had let the system
become malware-infested. Upgrading over a problematic OS isn't normally
a wise course to establishing a stable installation.
3) When the new OS isn't designed to properly, correctly, and safely
perform an upgrade.
A properly prepared and maintained PC can almost always be
successfully upgraded by a knowledgeable and competent individual. I've
lost count of the systems I've seen that have been upgraded from Win95
to Win98 to Win2K to WinXP (usually with incremental hardware upgrades
over the same time period), without the need for a clean installation,
and that are still operating without any problems attributable to upgrades.
Additionally, since Vista's and Win7's upgrade "mechanism" differ
widely from that of earlier operating systems, why would you think that
the same "old wives' tales" would apply?
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