PC w/Win7 but Vista CD, Should I Rollback?

[larrytucaz]

Okay, call me crazy, I know Vista is the most villified OS since ME and 7 is praised. That said, my situation is this: I got a new PC (waiting on its arrival) that the owner upgraded to Windows 7 (not sure what version) but it will only come with the Vista Home Basic SP1 restore CD. Should I "rollback" to that so that I won't have a situation come up where it asks for the CD and I don't have it? I do realize that doesn't happen as often as in the Windows 95 days--I can't recall the last time my current computer prompted me for my XP CD, then again it was nice to have to wipe the PC clean and start anew.

There is the issue of software compatibility, too. Some software I'm running on my XP SP2 machine is older stuff--some of it 2001--and it runs fine. Obviously some of it will be incompatible with Vista or 7, however some of it (not cheap) is showing as compatible with Vista but not 7. That would be another reason to do a "clean wipe" with the Vista restore CD.

Or, last question--IF I instead install XP SP2 on this machine, would I have issues with drivers etc being recognized?

 

[JackMDS]

Vista and Win 7 basically copy all the relevant part of the installation disk to the hard drive and keep it there.

I do not recall that in the last few years that I am using on many computer Vista and now Win 7 that I had to put the original DVD in. If it all it might be needed i the boot crashes and need to be restored.

You can use Win 7 with margin of security provided that you take images of the installation (like with Acronis True Image or similar application).

If some thing goes beyond repair you can Ghost back the whole drive.

 

[RebateMonger]

As JackMDS notes, if your system dies, you'll want to restore it from system image backups that you've made, not restore it from scratch.

If software doesn't work with Win7, it likely won't work with Vista, either.

 

[Binky]

No

 

[larrytucaz]

(JackMDS) and (RebateMonge) Can you help me here--even if it just means providing links? i have never done a "mirror image" (or whatever you called it) of a Windows installation to where you could refer to that vs a CD. How do you do this? Also i always understood or practiced if your PC was acting flaky and you couldnt fix it you wiped it clean and did a clean reinstall but you're telling me no. Can you help me understand that?

 

[JackMDS]

You need an external drive, or if you have a Network, a space on other computer.

Under regular setting a program like Acronis TrueImage creates a single backup file from the whole disk that is about 40% smaller then the original.

So if your HD contains files etc. of 50GB the result of Imaging would be a file of about 30GB. This file needs to be saved on an external drive or another computer.

When you Recover this Image file to a hard drive it would create an exact bootable duplicate as it was in day of the Backup.

There are few programs that do this type of BackUp/Recovery.

This one is the most popular, http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

A good price here, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-012-_-Product

When you get the program you install it on the computer, and you use the Tool of the program to create a Bootable CD.

There is a trail version too but there are some functional limitation to it.

Look at the bottom of the page, http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/comparison.html
.

 

[sivart]

As long as you have a Windows 7 COA you should be fine. If you're running Windows 7 on a machine that only has a Vista COA you may have problems doing updates (if for example someone uses your Windows 7 key to authorize another machine).

If you get the Windows 7 COA, you will be fine, just make an image like suggested above. Not sure why no one has mentioned the built in image maker in Windows 7. It made an image of mine and a recovery disc (CD) in case of failure. Haven't needed to use it, so I'm not sure how well it works.