"Mickey Segal" <not_monitored@example.com> wrote
>I did a (non-clean) upgrade from XP to Vista, and find that Vista is
>hanging and crashing a lot. I'm not sure how much of this is bugginess of
>Vista itself and how much is the problems of non-clean upgrades. If this
>gets any worse I'll need to start again. Since I've already activated my
>copy of Vista, what are my options?
>
> Do I need to do a recovery install of XP first, and can I even do a
> recovery install of XP if I used my copy of XP for the upgrade?
>
> Can I do a clean installation using my current Vista installation?
>
> Does a clean installation wipe out just Windows or wipe out all
> information on the hard drive?
If what you have is an upgrade version then you'll need to reinstall XP,
activate it, and then you can do a custom install starting from the XP
desktop.
This issue about the XP license is for some reason confusing some folks when
it shouldn't be. When you use XP as a qualifying OS for using a Vista
upgrade version, you cannot have both the XP and Vista installed at the same
time. That doesn't mean you can't then do a clean install of XP, removing
Vista from the computer. The activation will either go through on the
internet or you have to make a phone call. The point is either XP or Vista
can be installed but not both at that same time.
There is a published work around to install an upgrade version of Vista
without the qualifying OS installed. If you do have a qualifying OS then
there is no license problem doing it, but it is a newly published work
around, so all the ramifications of it down the road are not known. Use at
your own risk.
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070201
Whether Vista is installed from within an installed OS as an in place
upgrade, or a custom install, or installed with no qualifying OS present,
Vista is put down by a type of image or block copy. So there are no bits of
the old OS lying around. For an in place upgrade, after Vista is installed
then the programs and data and drivers are migrated and that's when problems
can happen. For a custom install from the XP desktop, the XP installation
is wrapped up into the windows.old folder but no data or programs are
migrated. If needed salvage data from windows.old, and then delete it. For
the install without a qualifying OS, you actually do two installs, first the
install without a product key, then an upgrade from that, so settings could
be migrated and the first install is wrapped up in the windows.old folder.
Clear as mud, eh?
--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]