questions about upgrading from vista

Hi. For reasons I won't go into, I may need to upgrade to windows 7 a little sooner than expected. I'm currently running vista home premium 64 bit. I know that I can buy a copy of windows 7 specifically as an upgrade from vista, but I have a few questions before I do so (if I do so at all).

1) Could I get my student discount in a store, or is that only available online through Microsoft?

2) I think I've been told that it will lump all my old programs/files into a Windows.old folder or something of the sort. Will any/many of them still be functional, or will I have to download / install new Windows 7 versions?

3) Relative terms I know, but about how tedious / time-consuming is the upgrade process using one of these upgrade disks?

Thanks in advance.

 

1) Unless it's your school campus store, then no, most likely not. At least, not unless they support MSDNAA or some other student discounting program.

2) If you do an upgrade, all your files and applications should still be present and working within Windows 7.

3) Takes anywhere from 1 to a few hours depending on how big your prior installation is.

Personally speaking, unless you have HUGE amounts of data/applications, I'd just clean install. Not only does it give you a "clean" machine, in the process you usually end up fishing out older applications you don't use anymore in the installation process i.e. if you didn't think about installing it, chances are you don't use it that often for it to matter.

 

I agree, clean install is always better, gives the machine a break.

 

I understand where both of you are coming from. Not to mention, in the event of a catastrophic HD failure, I would have to reinstall Vista first, and then the 7 upgrade (right?).

Nevertheless, I really don't want to have to go through re-installing all of my software, especially considering I'm at college at the moment and don't have access to many of the installation disks.

That said, I want to make sure I understand properly: If I choose the "upgrade" option, it keeps everything intact, correct? The windows.old folder only comes into play if I do a full installation without formatting?

 

It may keep everything intact. It may corrupt. Who knows, never the less, make sure you BACKUP.

 

It should do that, but yes, always backup. I've yet to see an unsuccessful upgrade, but as I said, it's always good to do a "cleanup" once in a while through clean installing.

I mean, unless you have lots of specialized softwares outside the base stuff that can be DLed through ninite, it's not all too bad clean installing. I do it all the time at the office lol

 

Run the windows 7 advisor:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...90-7659-4BD9-9E51-2497C146AF15&displaylang=en
It will tell you if have any hardware issues updating (doubtful if running Vista now) but more importantly will tell you the apps that may not work in your upgrade.
The upgrade path will work - back-up your data as recommended above. Check your manufacturer's website for updated drivers required with WIN 7 and should be all set.
Other than that my first upgrade took about 1 hour. Later, I did a clean install and like the folks above mentioned - it just works better. But not everyone has that option.

 

I ran the advisor earlier today and was actually going to ask a few questions based on my results.

The only hardware for which it said my drivers were definitely incompatible with Windows 7 was my ene pci memory stick card reader controller. This upset me a little; I use this reader frequently to transfer pictures from my camera to my computer. I couldn't find any drivers online that were listed as windows 7 compatible. Do any of you know whether I could find functional drivers for this, as I would really hate to be without it.

My second question regards graphics. Right now the drivers for my gpu are (obviously) designed for vista. When I boot up in windows 7 for the first time, should I have any trouble with my display? I obviously won't need it to run anything intense - just work well enough for me to get to the nvidia site and download new drivers.

A bunch of other hardware just came up as uncertain, but I'm assuming things like my sound card and ethernet card should be fine. Any other advice is, of course, appreciated.

 

In the worst case scenario, you can use Vista drivers, most of them work under Windows 7 since at the core, they are very similar.

Due to this, you shouldn't have any other issues regarding hardware.

 

Oh, and one more thing. My current version of the Microsoft .net framework was on the list of things that it recommended I uninstall before upgrading. Will the installation process of windows 7 replace it? If not how should I go about doing that?

 

For your card reader - two options - check the manufacturer's website for an update - else right click on the exe file (that installs the driver) and then the compatibility tab, change it to Vista. But as Forever_Melody mentioned - Win 7 & and Vista are very close to being the same.
Upgraded my daughter's older Sony Model (came with XP and a upgrade capability to Vista). Used the Vista drivers for the items WIN 7 did not automatically load and it worked fine. Had one driver did not want to load right and basically changed the compatibility mode and it installed and functioned fine after that.

 

Yeah, I checked the OEM's site last night and I think I found a driver that will work for the card reader. But now I have a bigger problem. Being a college student, I was planning on upgrading through the "ultimate steal" promotion. It was offering windows 7 professional for about $65. But it seems that only vista business edition can do the seamless upgrade to windows 7 pro. I'm running home premium, which can upgrade to either 7 home premium, or 7 ultimate. (It says in the ultimate steal terms that my OS is an eligible one for the upgrade license, but it also lists several versions of XP, so I'm guessing it just means I can get the license, but would have to do a standard installation.)

Does anyone know if home premium is still available through the ultimate steal program, or how I could find it? Or is that deal just done now?

 

Well bad news for your home premium upgrade:
http://windows7.digitalriver.com/st...=S7zz5AoHAi8AAEa6hRUAAAAN&rests=1270674402795
Appears Professional is your only option from what I saw on the new MS Site.

 

You shouldn't have problems with your video card. There is always the generic VGA drivers to fall back on.

I highly suggest going the upgrade path. It saves SO MUCH time.