Help with Vista Upgrade

Ok I’ve finally received the Vista upgrade DVD the other day and installed it over XP MCE. I entered the Vista product key and have not activated it yet.

Now I’d like to do a clean install of Vista. Where can I find a step by step guide for this? Would the guide by southern girl still apply?

Will there be problems or conflicts with some of the other older XP MCE functions or partitions such as backup/restore? Or should I just format those and just have Vista and Media direct?

If I wanted to go back to my original copy of XP MCE was it a mistake to have entered the product key while installing Vista?


I have a Inspiron 6400

 

Ok couple things. If you install Vista over your Windows you will not be able to revert back. So once you got Vista you can't go back without formatting your computer. I think Southern Girls format will help you during your installation since it was really detail and she did a good job, but since you are going to install for Vista it might be slightly different.

There is a trick to install Vista without a previous installed Windows. You said you got an upgrade cd from dell right? Pop in the dell upgrade cd, when it prompts to put in the cd key dont do it, keep going and it will install a clean installation of Vista without a previous Windows (even tho this is an upgrade cd). And then you can enter the product cd key later when you activate your windows.

 

Thanks for your reply,

Ok, I installed Vista over XP with the dell upgrade assistant CD first, then the Vista DVD, entering the product key but I did not activate. Smooth upgrade after I figured out a BSOD that turned out to be Kerio personal firewall left on. Oopps!

So, At this point I only want to do one of two things.

1) Do a clean install of Vista over the XP/Vista upgrade. I need to know of any possible problems/conflicts as mentioned above. I guess mainly what partitions to keep with Vista. I think that there are currently 4 factory XP based partitions on my laptop.

2) If I don’t like Vista within a few weeks I’d like to do a clean install back to XP MCE. What problems/conflicts may occur?

So in a nutshell I don’t care if I loose all data as this is my secondary computer, my desktop is another story.

congrats on your Sony!

 

1. I'm not sure what is this whole Dell assistant cd. It sounds like drivers, which you can download them off the dell support website so I wouldn't want to use the cd. I'm not really sure what you meant by keeping Vista on partition. Vista will install itself on the C: drive. If you don't want the partition on the factory default partition, delete it and make your own.

2. If you don't like Vista, then you would have to do a full clean installation of XP MCE. There shouldn't be any conflicts because it will completely wipe out everything on your c drive. I believe Dell also offers XP drivers still so you can get those drivers online.

 

Yeah, the assistant CD that is shipped with the Vista upgrade DVD helps you to migrate over to Vista by deleting incompatible factory dell software and installing all of the necessary Vista drivers to help make for a smooth transition.

So now that I have Vista installed over XP on my HDD I should be able to do a clean install of Vista now, right?


I think I’ll just go ahead and install a clean fresh copy of Vista using the upgrade DVD on one of the four partitions that has the XP/Vista upgrade OS already on it after I get all of the drivers from dell.

The only thing I’m still not sure about is whether or not to put the type in the Vista product key during installation. I know not to activate it unless I want to really keep it on my HDD.