Quirks and Tips For Upgrading To Vista

jcatcw writes "Computerworld's Scot Finnie has some advice for those considering an upgrade to Vista. He praises the work Microsoft has done on the installation program, but thinks it still presents problems for those who wish to upgrade. He recommends the free Windows Vista Upgrade Adviser. Then, be sure to pick the best edition for your use." From the article: "Don't bother wiping your hard disk. Just run the in-place upgrade from your previous installation. You'll be given the option to perform either an Upgrade or Custom (advanced) installation. Opt for the Custom install to clean-install Vista, and Windows Vista Setup does something smart: It creates a folder called Windows.old in your root directory that contains your old Documents and Settings, Program Files and Windows folders. (Note that on my test machine, this added step used an additional 7GB of disk storage.)"

c'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

259 bucks for an upgrade (other than for the crippled versions) is a bit steep.

Not this time

[dnoyeb]

I have a strong feeling I will never upgrade to windows Vista. Only thing I need windows for is playing Eve-online. If they force me, i will let them know their game is costing me $200+ which will piss me off.

I can't believe 'home' editions can not fax or scan. must be a misprint. Surely since MS is trying to be all 'lifestyles' like everyone else these days. and scan is no different from camera.

I can attest to the upgrade behavior

[casualsax3]

This also happened to me when I went from RC2 to Vista Business Final - it made a backup directory which I found nice and incredibly helpful. It really takes a lot of the worry about reinstalling.

Re:c'mon

[tritonman]

It helps to know someone at MS, it only cost me 45 bucks for Vista Ultimate.

By the way, if you have an nVidia card, prepare for a nightmare. I spent about a week getting Vista to work with my video card, I have a GeForce MX 5500, it would crash every 15 minutes with an infinite loop driver error, even with the lastest drivers.

Can we tag as "appledidit"?

[Kadin2048]

I figured this was just here, because it's been a feature of Mac OS in virtually every version since 10.2, released 2002 IIRC.

It's called "Archive and Install," and it did exactly what's being described. It moved the old system into a folder and then installed a fresh copy on the root level of the HD.

To be honest, I'm rather surprised if this is the first time Windows has offered such a feature. Given the seeming regularity with which Windows seems to like being reinstalled it seems like a no-brainer. How many focus groups did it take them to come up with this?

Re:Not this time

[Anonymous Coward]

Never. DX10 requires the new Vista video driver support. The good news is, since Vista adoption is slow and hardware support is still lacking, it may be a long time before any games require DX10. Our company (won't say which) will be sticking with DX9, and is even considering switching to OpenGL. DX10 (and Vista in general) looks like a huge mistake.