Vista - In-Place Upgrade

Hello,
I just downloaded Vista Business through MSDNAA and currently have WinXP
Pro. I was reading about the in-place upgrade option they have and it is
available under my circumstances. Will this essentially be the same as just
changing to Vista and being able to keep all of my programs with their same
functionality? I'm just a little hazy about trying to do this, because I
dont' want to lose somethings. I have two partitions on my harddrive. One
which houses XP and the other various programs and such. If the install goes
bad, I can always just wipe the XP partition and reinstall correct?

If you wipe the system partition and reinstall XP you would also have to
reinstall all the programs. Having the programs on another partition doesn't
really give you any protection in this situation. Before installing Vista
backup both of your partitions. If something goes wrong you can then get
back to exactly where you were before installing Vista. I prefer to use a
disk imaging program with an external hard drive but there are many good
backup solutions. Choose one and use it. Even if you decide not to install
Vista you still need backups.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"Craig" <Craig@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4A951E5C-E268-48D3-8924-C5B2F86B0940@microsoft.com...
> Hello,
> I just downloaded Vista Business through MSDNAA and currently have WinXP
> Pro. I was reading about the in-place upgrade option they have and it is
> available under my circumstances. Will this essentially be the same as
> just
> changing to Vista and being able to keep all of my programs with their
> same
> functionality? I'm just a little hazy about trying to do this, because I
> dont' want to lose somethings. I have two partitions on my harddrive.
> One
> which houses XP and the other various programs and such. If the install
> goes
> bad, I can always just wipe the XP partition and reinstall correct?

To supplement Kerry's fine answer, yes the upgrade-in-place will preserve
your files, settings, and apps. However, you must pay close attention to
the compatibility report you get during the upgrade process and follow its
instructions with regard to programs and drivers that do not work with Vista
or you may wind up with a dysfunctional system. In particular you MUST
remove antivirus and antimalware programs and any program that performs live
scans or monitors the system. The compat report should list those. Don't
ignore any of the advice in the compat report. It is not only that they may
not work with Vista, they may actually cause the installation fail.

"Craig" <Craig@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4A951E5C-E268-48D3-8924-C5B2F86B0940@microsoft.com...
> Hello,
> I just downloaded Vista Business through MSDNAA and currently have WinXP
> Pro. I was reading about the in-place upgrade option they have and it is
> available under my circumstances. Will this essentially be the same as
> just
> changing to Vista and being able to keep all of my programs with their
> same
> functionality? I'm just a little hazy about trying to do this, because I
> dont' want to lose somethings. I have two partitions on my harddrive.
> One
> which houses XP and the other various programs and such. If the install
> goes
> bad, I can always just wipe the XP partition and reinstall correct?

Same problem!

MS sent us our vista business upgrade licenses, did an upgrade but ouch
BSOD's all over the place, did a clean install performance increase was
massive, but ouch our upgrade key's can't be used for clean installs.

Had an hr long conversation with the MS guy's and they just said that’s the
way it is, so if you upgrade you loose performance and not everything works
but your license will activate but if you do a clean install you get greater
performance but you cant activate.

Not sure why MS picked this option for upgrades but a bad decision in my
view, if users have paid for xp in the past and then go for vista upgrade it
shows they are loyal and MS should respect that by offering clean installs.

Anyways more people that complain the better according to MS!

"Chris Daley - Dwebs Ltd" <ChrisDaleyDwebsLtd@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:F196E9A1-9B84-4B9B-970D-E3B322BFB413@microsoft.com...
> Same problem!
>
> MS sent us our vista business upgrade licenses, did an upgrade but ouch
> BSOD's all over the place, did a clean install performance increase was
> massive, but ouch our upgrade key's can't be used for clean installs.
>
> Had an hr long conversation with the MS guy's and they just said that’s
> the
> way it is, so if you upgrade you loose performance and not everything
> works
> but your license will activate but if you do a clean install you get
> greater
> performance but you cant activate.
>
> Not sure why MS picked this option for upgrades but a bad decision in my
> view, if users have paid for xp in the past and then go for vista upgrade
> it
> shows they are loyal and MS should respect that by offering clean
> installs.
>
> Anyways more people that complain the better according to MS!
>


That is a different problem from the OP's concerns. They are using a full
version of Vista to upgrade you are using an upgrade version. They may run
into similar problems if they choose to upgrade but with the full version
they can do a clean install if they want. FWIW I have done a few upgrades
from XP to Vista and only once did I have similar problems to what you
experienced. I reimaged back to XP then ran the upgrade advisor. It
identified the problem hardware as not having a compatible driver. Once I
found the right driver I did an upgrade then installed the driver and the
problems disappeared. Did you run the upgrade advisor before running the
upgrade? Another thing that helps ensure a good upgrade is to uninstall all
antivirus, antispyware, system utilities, disk monitoring utilities, printer
drivers, etc. before attempting the upgrade. You want as clean a system as
you possibly can.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca

Can you reformat and reinstall the base XP? If you are able to do that you
can then upgrade to Vista Business again and reinstall your apps after
carefully weeding out incompatible apps. It is the apps that are causing
the perf issues, not the the fact that you upgraded the OS. No part of XP
is retained when you upgrade to Vista because beginning with Vista every
install of the OS is a clean install of the OS.

If you did not remove all antivirus, anti-malware, and other apps that scan
or monitor the system then I don't wonder that you had issues. And, of
course, if you don't have Vista drivers where required you will have a big
perf hit.

"Chris Daley - Dwebs Ltd" <ChrisDaleyDwebsLtd@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:F196E9A1-9B84-4B9B-970D-E3B322BFB413@microsoft.com...
> Same problem!
>
> MS sent us our vista business upgrade licenses, did an upgrade but ouch
> BSOD's all over the place, did a clean install performance increase was
> massive, but ouch our upgrade key's can't be used for clean installs.
>
> Had an hr long conversation with the MS guy's and they just said that’s
> the
> way it is, so if you upgrade you loose performance and not everything
> works
> but your license will activate but if you do a clean install you get
> greater
> performance but you cant activate.
>
> Not sure why MS picked this option for upgrades but a bad decision in my
> view, if users have paid for xp in the past and then go for vista upgrade
> it
> shows they are loyal and MS should respect that by offering clean
> installs.
>
> Anyways more people that complain the better according to MS!
>