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Vista upgrade question - 11/12/2008 8:28:26 PM
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Lady_of_Faith
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I'm thinking about finally upgrading the OS on my desktop to Vista. Now I know I just need the upgrade version of the software since my desktop is currently running XP Media Center. Would I need to reinstall all of my current programs after upgrading the OS?
I never did an OS upgrade, just new installs, so I never came across this dilemma.
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/13/2008 8:39:56 AM
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Miss Giggles
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You might have to, esp if they are older programs.
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/13/2008 10:31:57 AM
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DaveW
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Yeah - everything will have to be reinstalled. As with most upgrades or re-installs, it is best to format the hard drive before putting on the OS, so you had better back up EVERYTHING.
Or - better yet - buy a new bigger hard drive and put Vista on it fresh.
But make sure you have enough recources to run vista. My laptop came with vista home preinstalled but only had 1 gig of system ram (not expandable) and vista ran like a dog with 3 broken legs. It just barely dragged itself along.
I downgraded to XP and it runs great.
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/13/2008 11:10:22 PM
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Lady_of_Faith
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I was afraid of that, oh well
My system came preinstalled with some base programs, but I have backups. My system is Vista upgrade compatible, it came with only 1GB of memory, but I installed another stick for 2. The most important and most used programs is Office 2007, my sims 2/simcity 4 games, everything else can be re-downloaded from the internet (Adobe reader, firefox 3, etc.).
I plan on upgrading my processor to AMD X2 6000 (3.0Ghz), so I just may consider the new hard drive too and finalize all of these upgrades at once. Thanks for your help.
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/14/2008 12:50:54 PM
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rrtt11
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There is a lot to consider before upgrading to vista.
First why do you need vista?
XP can do just about everything vista can without having to upgrade everything.
My advice is to wait until you buy a new pc with vista loaded onto it rather than tackling a conversion.
Here is a handy tool from microsoft that will tell you what is compatible and what is not with vista
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/14/2008 3:32:22 PM
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figmentPez
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Also, consider what video processor you have in your computer. Vista is very demanding in that regard. For Aero (Vista's spiffy new graphics engine) to work, you'll need a chip that can do DirectX 9 in hardware. Intel chipsets (the most common type built into motherboards) didn't support DX9 until a couple of years ago. Even if a chip does do DX9, that doesn't mean it does it well.
All things considered, there aren't a lot of things about Vista that XP can't be made to do as well. The Aero interface is one of them, but it's not a good reason to upgrade. DX10 is, officially, one of those things as well, but only gamers (serious, cutting-edge, high-end) care about DX10. Those two things are the only one's I know of, off the top of my head.
I'm running Vista on my computer right now. I like it, it works well for me. However, it's not much different than XP. I'd make sure you have a compelling reason to switch to Vista before spending money to switch.
< Message edited by figmentPez -- 11/14/2008 4:27:32 PM >
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/14/2008 4:21:19 PM
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PGAGA
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Friday, November 14, 2008
We have avoided VISTA upgrades, selecting to go with new Mac systems. Our (office and home) reason for sticking with WinXP when Windows is necessary, has been backward compatibility.
Those who I know who have been happy with VISTA, have not upgraded but bought new systems. VISTA is hardware dependent and the least little bit of hardware incompatibility can cause problems. (Here this version of Windows resembles Windows ME.)
Thus changing processors and hard drive could cause problems for the installation. Make sure from whomever you get part will give a full refund if they will not "play" with existing hardware.
My understanding is that VISTA offers the option to create a dual boot system during upgrade. What that does to shared software I do not know.
Upgrading should cause no problems with Word 2007, but your problem could be with games. A dual boot system could leave you with Games on XP and work on VISTA.
If you save your Word 2007 registration key, you should be able to download the installation file and reinstall using it. If it hiccups do to the change in hardware/operating system, the a call to Microsoft should get you a new registration number--as long as you have the old.
Phil
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/14/2008 6:41:03 PM
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draexo
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My Win XP system suffered a major OS failure. It would have required quite a bit of work to fix, so I upgraded to Vista. For the most part, I like it. There are a few programs that no longer worked, and I had to find new ones. If you like the look and feel of Vista and are prepared to reinstall everything, then go for it. Otherwise, wait til you get a system that ships with it.
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RE: Vista upgrade question - 11/15/2008 9:18:58 PM
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rlj
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quote:
Those who I know who have been happy with VISTA, have not upgraded but bought new systems. VISTA is hardware dependent and the least little bit of hardware incompatibility can cause problems. (Here this version of Windows resembles Windows ME.)
We have three computers here with Vista and 2 of the 3 were built with Vista completely in mind and the third already had an adequate DX 9 video card. I tell everyone who asks don't bother upgrading to Vista unless you have to. If you don't know why you'd have to then don't. I like it because it is very stable but for what it actually does compared to XP it is really kind of lame.
If I ever break down and buy another 2x512 memory kit that one will run Vista fine. I cannibalized the memory for another box so it now has 1. : / That is the most important thing about Vista is the RAM you really need to have 2 gig of RAM. Next would be the video which is really pathetic. I don't know how some people can even stand Vista with those el-cheapo on board video setups. That's going too off topic though.
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