Upgrade from windows vista home to vista Business Edition

[Priyal]

Hi,

M much of windows xp guy but M started using windows vista home edition on
my labtop and i need to upgrade to vista Business editon as some IIS
features are missing in home edition.

Now i got the fresh installation CD of business edtion.While doing upgrade
do i need to format whole pc? is my data and projects will be lost??

What is the best way to install?? What things i need to keep in mind while
upgrade??

Any help will be appreciated..

Thanks

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

You don't need to format, but you can't upgrade as that is not a supported
path. Vista Home upgrades to Ultimate, not Business. If you do it without
formatting (providing you have sufficient free space), then the existing
installation and user data will be moved to a windows.old folder on the root
of the drive. You can later retrieve data from this (though it's still a
wise idea to back up data to removable media). You will not be able to
recover user profiles or installed software. You will need to build new
profiles and reinstall software from its original installation media.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

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

 

[orthocross]

Hi,

You don't need to format, but you can't upgrade as that is not a supported
path. Vista Home upgrades to Ultimate, not Business. If you do it without
formatting (providing you have sufficient free space), then the existing
installation and user data will be moved to a windows.old folder on the root
of the drive. You can later retrieve data from this (though it's still a
wise idea to back up data to removable media). You will not be able to
recover user profiles or installed software. You will need to build new
profiles and reinstall software from its original installation media.

While all this is true, it is still always a good idea to install a
higher release "clean" (by formatting the HD), in which case one would
lose all your data unless it is backed up externally.

I'm just not comfortable with installing a new OS on the same
partition on which the old one is installed, whether the old one is
"dead" or not.

Since one is going to have to create a new profile and reinstall
software in any case, it's just as easy to go ahead and prepare the HD
properly by repartitioning and formatting.

Additionally, it is also good to get into the habit of backing up
one's data externally, since it will pay huge dividends over time. Let
this be the start of a better and safer course of action for the OP.