THE Vista Express Upgrade Thread

Thanks Brett,

Anyone now how much Memory it takes, I have a 80gig hard drive, currently with 35 gig spare?

 

15 gigs are required to upgrade.

~ Brett

Edit: All 15 are only used for temporary file storage during the upgrade - I'm pretty sure the upgrade doesn't take up all 15 gigs once it's done.

 

i haven't installed any programs... holding at about 10 gigs.

 

For those of you who want to do a clean install - you don't have to install Vista twice as i read in some posts. It booted and installed from the upgrade CD without a problem.

Another thing: I have an Asus A8JP and for some reason the driver CD didn't install properly the ATI driver so I had to download the ATI driver from the ASUS site.

I haven't played with the OS much yet, but it looks like everything works and is detected properly under Vista and the driver installs. I'd be a pretty happy camper right now if Vista didn't suck at networking ....

 

So you just put the upgrade CD in, booted from it, told it to blank a partition and gave it the key attached to the jewel-box and the install worked ok? That's good news but it really surprises me - I was under the impression that all upgrade media needed to go through the process described. Cool

~ Brett

 

I got my upgrade! Woohoo! Did a fresh install, booted from the CD and entered the key and in less than 20 minutes I was using Windows Vista!

 

Got the upgrade CDs today (Friday). Shipped from North Carolina to California. Shipping charges were billed to the credit card on Wednesday. Never received a confirming email that it was sent.

Ordered December 28, 2006. Received June 1, 2007. While that's over six months, it's OK. I've decided to wait to do the upgrade until most vendors catch up with Vista.

Thanks for all the updates and postings. Good luck to everyone else who requested the free upgrade. Hang in there!

 

Not necessarily. You can do the simple upgrade without going through the two-step process.

If you want a clean install (not just an upgrade), then you need to do the two-step process. The two-step process should take approx. 45-60 minutes: 20 minutes for the initial install with no key; 25-45 minutes for the secondary install with the key. Don't know why the secondary install takes longer, just does according to what I've read.

 

That's what I thought but in this post, someone said the two-step process was unnecessary...

~ Brett

 

I saw that too. Even though the user intended to do a clean install, I think they just did the upgrade. I could be wrong, but that's been my understanding from a number of other places:

See Use Vista's Upgrade Version to Clean Install from Windows Secrets.

Or Daily Tech's Article on The Clean Install Workaround With Upgrade DVDs.

I've seen it in a couple of other places too. So, my assumption is that if you install Vista and enter the product key the first time, you get an upgrade.

If you install Vista without the product key the first time, it does a clean install of the OS as a trial version. Then, you can "upgrade" the trial version to the full version by doing the second "upgrade" install with the product key.

 

That's my understanding as well.

~ Brett

 

I did a clean install the first time. The only thing it did was keep my old program files, windows, and documents and settings in a backup folder. Everything else was cleaned and I have nothing from my previous install of XP besides the backed up data.

 

Just wanted everyone to know that I just got my asus vista upgrade CD. I ordered it back in march 11 and have been at "order received" for a couple of weeks. Anyway those of you in Seattle, WA might also be getting the same surprise in your mail this week. Cross your fingers!

 

Hm, now that I have the chance to look again, I guess it did a new install of Windows while preserving all of my old crap. That stinks. I guess I have to reinstall everything all over again.

 

I got mine today...Orlando, FL. NO email....just arrived in the mail.

 

I got a question for w3j owners, did u guys update your bios prior to installing vista, or did the driver cd did that for you?

 

Haha, that's the definition of not a clean install. Thanks for letting us know for sure though.

~ Brett

 

I don't think it's possible for the driver CD to do that for you. You need to download the newest version from the Asus site (A11 I think) or get it off the CD (if it is there) and then use the Winflash utility to update the BIOS.

~ Brett

 

Yeah, for some reason I thought it made a temporary partition to dump the data. I guess I know what I'm doing today.

The thing is, it asked me if I wanted to upgrade my current install of xp or do a new install of Vista. I guess that's what threw me off.

 

Moduslink cancelled my order, did not notify me, and when I sent an e-mail inquiring as to why and how I might have my order filled, I was told that the redemption period had expired, such that my order would never be filled. ****ers.

 

I got mine. I dont plan to install it soon though. = )

 

call them and tell them i'm sure they will still give you your copy!!

 

OK, I'm looking at these links on how to do a clean install and I don't see how it's "cleaner" than what I did. It's still a fresh install of Vista that I have. All of my crap from xp is in windows.old.

 

It's not a huge difference but for people with issues like viruses, adware, etc., it may be necessary for them to literally wipe the HD clean and leave no remnants of the malicious software. It's also been reported that the upgrade may take up a little more space on the HD than a fresh install. There are a couple more reasons but some people also just like knowing that everything is brand new when they install an OS.

~ Brett

 

I actually did notice I lost a bit of disc space. Like 10GB or so. Can I still do the clean install if I already "upgraded"?

 

You're going to lose disc space regardless since Vista is a bigger OS - the issue is that you may lose a tiny bit more if you upgrade instead of install fresh. I think you can still do a clean install but I'm not sure what Microsoft's draconian rules on COA #s allow.

~ Brett

 

Yeah, I'm slightly worried about that considering I wanted to purchase a 7200rpm HDD at some point...

 

According to This ZDNet Blog, you need 15 GB to install. But the final installation should only take up 6-9 GB total (depending on the version you install and how much space is reserved for pagefile and System Restore).

If you decide to not do a clean install, I believe you can delete "windows.old" and you'll get back a lot of space that way. Windows.old is required, though, if you decide you want to go back to XP.

 

So, I'm guessing to do a clean install with the upgrade CD, when you install you select full install instead of ugprade? And then you don't enter your CD key until it is fully installed and you upgrade "again"?

 

For some reasons i think the product key is an OEM key. In the System properties the key has an OEM in it i.e xxxxxx-OEM-xxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxx. And after clean installing i entered the key and it works.

 

With the clean install, how will my A8JP function without stuff like power4gear and all the other asus preloaded progs?

 

reinstall the drivers either from the provided new driver cd or download from their website.

 

what's the thread explaining how to do a clean install with an upgrade cd?

 

pop in vista, restart boot from dvd. install now, do not enter cdkey, uncheck automatically activate. select advaced, format drive, install. once done install from within vista. this time enter cdkey provided.

you are basically upgrading vista on vista. first time is to install as a trial (clean) and then installing a second time so you can activate as an upgrade.

 

After nearly four months my upgrade disc arrived today. No shipping notice was ever sent so I was surprised to see it show up (plus I was kinda expecting it to never even arrive)

Is the activation tied to the XP COA number that my a8jp had, or can I use it on another machine?

 

any machine

 

Same here, nearly four months have passed since the last great...I mean...nearly four months have passed since I first registered online.

I did not receive any special notice and was quite flabbergast at the disk arrival.


So far, Window Vista works perfectly on the G1.




My question is, can I use it on another machine?



Thanks.

 

No, only for ASUS G1, hell it might even be locked only for your G1

 

This is probably what you're looking for.

~ Brett

 

I installed Window Vista and accidently deleted the recovery partition.
Partition no longer called Recovery. How to I get this back, or do I really
need it? It won't let me expand this partition with the other drives.
What I want is, 2 partition, 20gig for OS and rest is for storage. But
Window Vista only lets me shrink down to 32gig. What type of setup you
guys have? Thanks.

 

you dont really need it, since i assume you wont be using xp anymore.

 

I still have not received my vista. I decided to check the moduslink website and it says my order is cancelled! I have even sent them my stupid invoice TWICE. What is wrong with these people.

 

I had to call them back to fix the order a few weeks ago (32bit instead of 64bit). They gave me an order number that started with an R. Did anyone else have something like that? I can't seem to check the order status online anymore (though it figures, since it's not the same order number)...

 

I got an email today saying my copy has been shipped and I should get it in 3 weeks. I got the damn thing 2 weeks ago.

What is wrong with these people???? Where shall I start.....

I don't think M$ will be giving them any more business.

 

I got two emails today saying it was shipped and got mine two weeks ago, too.

This is a great example of "failure to use technology". They have our email, they have our order number. The two are linked somehow in their system (Moduslink requires both to find out the status). I find this hard to believe, if you believe their website blurb:

If that's true, they need to learn to use technology, not just service its needs (whatever that means).

If they fill the orders sequentially, how on earth is it possible that they can't come up with even a simple batch program that will send an email when orders in a specific range are shipped?

There were a lot of problems with this - not just Moduslink. Asus fell behind in getting the driver CDs done (apparently, either Asus or Moduslink ran out of CDs at one point - whoever was burning them), companies took their time in getting their drivers updated for Vista to begin with, etc.

But, I think it's a positive in a bizarre way. While waiting for the CDs, we've been able to see what everyone else's experience with Vista and the upgrade process has been like. Which means we're better informed on whether we want to upgrade now or not.

 

Just got an email saying my order shipped.

Guess we shall see... according to the website, it was shipped on May 24. That sure is a long *&^# time to arrive considering I haven't rcv'd it yet.

 

OMG, what a cluterf*&k. I just checked my shipping status:

https://tracking.mailexpress.biz/tracking.php
which then gives you a USPS number to track.

And it shows that it was delivered on the 29th... to a city 20 miles down the road. Not even the same zip code or city. WTH? I'm so pi$$ed off right now I could spit nails.

 

Well, I was able to get in contact with them and they are sending me out another copy.

 

Here's an update for everyone>>>

You can call the number at moduslink.com (under contact us) and ask to speak with someone in the Vista Redemption department. I did this because my order was cancelled and *****ing in email got me no where but past the deadline.

Long story short, all it took was 1 conversation explaining that the site says my order is cancelled, playing dumb as if I didn't know, and they very quickly updated my order to 32 bit (instead of 64) and it's now being processed.

 

Moduslink sure screwed up. Let's just call it a Vista Upgrade Program. Drop the word 'Express'. Really.