Re-installing Vista

[P. Jayant]

I have been reading the news about Microsoft advising PC manufacturers to
discontinue use of XP for new PCs. But Vista is still not problem-free as is
obvious from the postings on this Newsgroup. Which is causing me concern.

Because I bought the version of Vista for upgrading from XP, installed it
over XP, tried it for three months and faced a number of problems. Many of
the applications which I had on my PC disappeared when Vista was installed.
When I tried to install them from the OEM CDs, Vista refused to install
them. Similarly, my Sound card and Video capture card would not work because
neither Vista nor my search on the Internet and with the manufacturer could
get me Vista compatible drivers. Vista compatible cards to replace the old
ones could not be supplied by any of the PC device suppliers in India. They
said the demand is still not enough to justify stocking new cards. So I had
no choice but to revert to XP.

Now if I am compelled to up(?)grade to Vista because Microsoft decides to
stop support for XP, can the OEM CD for Vista I have with me be used once
again? And if so, would I automatically get all the necessary upgrades to
make Vista as problem-free as it will be available to new customers of Vista
at that time?

P. Jayant

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Who said MS is stopping support of XP? MS will continue to support XP SP3
until April of 2014.

Vista support of the programs and devices you refer to are the
responsibility of the manufacturer's. MS cannot do much more than encourage
those manufacturers to update software and drivers.

You can install XP compatible programs in XP compatibility mode. Have you
tried that? That won't work for programs like antivirus programs that use
lower level operating system routines, but in general it does work.

 

[Earle Horton]

Something doesn't make sense. OEM CD is for clean install on a new
computer. Once you install it, you can only use it on that one computer,
but upgrades to the computer don't change this. Upgrade CD is a retail
product, and you can install it as many times as you like, but you can only
have it on one computer at a time. Maybe the licensing is different in
India. Either way, it appears that you will be able to use that Vista
install CD (probably actually a DVD?) again.

Earle

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

First, XP support is not going away, only sales of new licenses. This is
part of the normal cycle of operating systems. Has been for decades, and not
just Windows. Apple does not sell new licenses for old versions of the Mac
OS. Even the best Linux distribution servers only offer the last two or
three revisions at best. Support will continue for some time now.

Second, XP was not "problem-free" in its first few years either. In fact, if
you search the archives of these newsgroups you'll find that the volume of
xp.general from late 2001-2004 was triple that of this group. At that time,
the cries were all about how business would never adopt XP over Win2K, with
all its mickey-mouse icons and lack of support for older business
applications (sound familiar?). Nope, they were gonna stick to NT4 or Win2K.
To add to this, keep in mind that these groups are not populated by people
happy with their systems, but rather those with problems, those trying to
help those with problems, and the usual amalgam of detractors (switch to
Ubuntu! - it'll solve all your problems (right)).

Thirdly, as to your OEM DVD for Vista, there's no reason why you shouldn't
be able to re-use it and the license that came with it once the drivers are
available for your hardware. Once installed with a valid license, all
applicable updates will also be available.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com