When Vista Comes - And It Will

[jimmyj68]

I can't even run the forum page - imagine Vista????????

Anyway,- I'm going to Vista early next year and remembering the hassles people had with upgrading to XP I'm wondering what the experts recommend - upgrade or fresh install (Deal Or No Deal?)?

 

[Shawn]

fresh install always!

 

[EQTitan]

Fresh install (just completed mine) love Vista.....now for new sound card =)

 

[Aluvus]

Ars apparently had terrible luck with an upgrade install on an older machine. But that was not with the final version of Vista, so it may have been ironed out.

 

[n7]

Fresh is always better.

 

[pcgeek11]

I wouldn't consider anything but a fresh install. Easy less problems and just migrate your data over.

pcgeek11

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

Coffee ==> Fresh
Vegetables ==>Fresh
Air ==> Fresh
Flight attendands (female ones) ==>hot and fresh

OS installations ==> Always Fresh!

Those are the rules.

 

[purepunkrock]

Oh dear god dont upgrade, my experience with upgrading to RC2 from XP was a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: purepunkrock
Oh dear god dont upgrade, my experience with upgrading to RC2 from XP was a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!

That's not accurate anymore as you weren't using the final product. Not to mention that it sounds like you were attempting to use it as your main OS, which isn't the grandest idea either.

 

[marulee]

I would try to upgrade from previous OS to Vista to test how well this new platform handles on 'new features' which MS advertised.

Then fresh!

 

[coupland]

For the record, *all* Vista installs are fresh. When you upgrade it simply backs up select settings, does a fresh install, then migrates your settings back. I upgraded my XP machine to Beta 2 with no issues, although I'll grant the system had only been running XP for a couple months. I tend to agree with the folks here that fresh is better if you can do it, but Vista does a *lot* more cleaning of lint than XP setup did.

 

[jimmyj68]

I kinda suspected (expected) that Microsoft would try to make getting Vista as easy as possible and try to avoid the debacle of XP upgrades. I did a fresh install of XP the first time to XP home but I upgraded to XP Pro although the upgrade package would do a fresh install if you had the original XP disc available for a check when asked for.

My problem is I'm really scared of losing all my I Tunes music if I screw up backing up my data. I'm always a little shaky on backing up stuff to another drive and then "migrating" it back to the "C" drive where I'll install Vista. What if I Tunes won't play nice with Vista? All other data on my machine that is important is duplicated on servers and can be easily reloaded. Rhapsody will dump everything you have on your machine right back again if you lose it for some reason (as long as it is the same machine or no more than 5 machines). I got I Tunes to do it for me once but they warned they would not do it again. I really should be backing up I Tunes constantly any way. My bad.

 

[RebateMonger]

Whether you do an upgrade or an full install of Vista, you still need backups of any important data. In fact, you need that even if you aren't doing ANYTHING to your PC.

Personally, I've always had good luck with "upgrades". I've had systems (with gradually upgraded hard drives) that started with DOS and Windows 1.0 and were upgraded all the way to XP without any full re-installs. One of current PCs (with XP) still has a complete Windows 2.1 install on the hard drive, complete with some 1988-era Wndows Apps.

My current work XP Pro PC WAS a full re-install, but that was mostly because there were so many junk programs on the old PC that it seemed easier to start over than to try to decide which programs to keep and which to delete.

Note that I have NOT performed a Vista upgrade yet, so I have no idea how reliable the upgrade process is. As noted, you can't necessarily judge from experience with pre-release Vista versions.

Upgrades CAN go astray. I had one Win95 to Win98 that bombed out because of a failing CD drive and that made a pretty good mess of the disk. But I've done dozens of "Win98 to XP" and "Win2000 to XP" and most have had happy conclusions. As long as you make the MUST-HAVE backups, you can always try an upgrade and see how it works for you. If it works, you've saved a ton of time in re-installing all your applications. If it doesn't work, you can always wipe the drive and do the full install, with not much time lost.