BrianH said:
I currently have XP pro installed and just got vista business through my
school. If i install it on my current HD will it transfer files? or if i
got
a new HD would i be able to transfer the files from my old HD to the new
one
with vista on the same computer?
Well you have to decide what it is you want. Do you want Vista to replace
XP or do you want a dual boot? It can be done either way. Note that to
dual boot the two the Vista has to be a full license, not an upgrade
version. The Vista license prohibits having both Vista and the copy of XP
that was used to justify using an upgrade version installed at the same
time.
If you just want vista you can install it either as an upgrade or a clean
install An upgrade will migrate data, programs and settings; a clean
(custom) install does not. An upgrade doesn't always work so if you want to
go this route make sure you not only backup data but I strongly recommend
you image the XP installation first to an external USB drive using something
like Acronis True Image.
If you want to do a clean (custom install) you can first run the Windows
Easy Transfer Utility on the XP installation to save data and settings to
CD/DVD or an external hard drive, or a networked drive. I would not count
on that as my only backup of the data. I would make sure there was another
backup in some other media as well (an image is the best as I talked about
above), then install Vista clean, use WET to bring in the data and settings
and then install all the programs.
Yes you can install Vista to a new drive. I would first run WET on the XP
installation before installing Vista. After that you can install Vista on
the new drive with the XP drive still attached, and let the Vista boot
loader set up a dual boot, or remove the XP drive, install Vista, then
reinstall the XP drive and use a third party boot loader to manage which OS
is booted. Use WET to bring in the data/settings
The Vista version has to be a full version not an upgrade.
How to use Windows Easy Transfer to migrate files and settings from one
Windows-based computer to another Windows Vista-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928634/en-us
WET is designed to transfer between two computers or to transfer from on
computer to some intermediate source such as DVD or and external or
networked drive, and then from there to another computer. It's not designed
to transfer from one internal drive to another.
