Vista is bad enough. Upgrading just seems to increase the problems 10 fold.
Only to people that don't know what they're doing. <snicker>
If you are starting with a new box and you only have to reinstall a
handful of application, maybe then doing a clean install makes sense.
If you're like me and have hundreds of applications, over a million
files and in excess of 1 TB used up and another 1 TB of backup to do a
clean install would be absurd and a huge waste of my time. Of course
before attempting any install in place you make damn sure you have
working backups of everything first. Since that is rotinue for me and
the real serious user crowd as well, not some of the kiddies that hang
out here, not a problem. ;-)
More so now then even since Vista will image your old settings and
installed software files and simply reinstall them for you if you tell
it to do a upgrade rather then do a clean install. So that begs the
question why do it by hand when you're using a computer that can do
such muldane tasks better and faster and likely more accurately
without human intervention? I got better things to do than fiddle with
reinstalling way over a hundred different applications, many requiring
reactivation online, hunting for serial numbers, activation keys,
original install CD's and the whole nine yards of pain in the ass BS
just to do a clean install. But I probably got way more software
install then most people and some is even harder to activate then
Windows is. Another reason I HATE doing a clean install. ;-)
Of course there are cautions. It would be foolhardy to do a install in
place if you are currently having problems with XP or some of your
appliations or hardware is outdated. Then such problems will just get
transfered over. The old axiom of adding a quart of fresh oil to your
car's 4 quarts of dirty oil only results in 5 quarts of dirty oil when
you're finished. However adding fresh oil, to a smooth running engine
that already has 4 quarts of clean oil is fine.
What happens when you do an install in place is Windows will likely
write some entires to the new Registry that aren't needed or are
simply wrong, maybe duplicated. These are commonly known as 'orphans'
and point to nowhere valid, thus they do no real harm and can be easly
found and removed with any Registry Cleaner. Of course there are
exceptions to every rule, but the often heard "you're always better to
do a clean install" is born more out of fear and ignorance more often
coming from newbies and the faker crowd that infest newsgroups like
this, meaning such people just don't know any better and base what
they do on what others before have done which is often only based on
wild rumor and unfound speculation. If it was 'bad' to do a upgrade,
then Microsoft wouldn't allow it in the first place and force you to
do a clean install. They do not. Except for trying to go from XP Pro
to Home Premium, but that's just a marketing ploy to get you to buy a
more expensive version of Vista.
