Win xp pro & Vista Ultimate

[Guest]

First, can I upgrade to Vista with the full installation program without
losing all my programs or do I have to do a clean install? If I create
another partition, can I install and run both XP Pro & Vista Ultimate on the
same machine selecting one or the other at boot up. If not, can I go back to
XP without losing everything if I don't like Vista?

 

[Rock]

First, can I upgrade to Vista with the full installation program without
losing all my programs or do I have to do a clean install?

Not sure what you mean by "with the full installation program". Depending
on what version of XP is on the sytem and to what version of Vista you wish
to go to, it might allow an in place upgrade (programs and data retained),
or it might require a custom (clean) install where they are not migrated.
See this link for info on the upgrade paths. Green dots mean in place
upgrade is supported, yellow means only custom install.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx

On OEM version can only do a custom install.

If I create another partition, can I install and run both XP Pro & Vista
Ultimate on the
same machine selecting one or the other at boot up.

If the Vista was an upgrade version and XP was the qualifying OS used for
that upgrade, then no. The Vista license prohibits running both at the same
time. If Vista is uninstalled then the XP license can be reused.

If the Vista version is the full retail version or an OEM, then yes you can
dual boot with XP since XP is not needed as a qualifying OS for the upgrade.

If not, can I go back to XP without losing everything if I don't like
Vista?

There is a KB article that describes how you can revert to XP from an
upgrade. If that doesn't work then to do this you would need to clean
install XP.

How to restore a computer to a previous Windows installation after you
install Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927522/en-us

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Always, always have a full backup, and that advice is mandatory when
upgrading an OS. I recommend using a drive imaging program such as Acronis
True Image Home version 10 to image the XP installation to an external USB
drive before doing the upgrade, then if things don't work out it can be
restored quickly.

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

First, can I upgrade to Vista with the full installation program without
losing all my programs or do I have to do a clean install?

Yes, you can upgrade your existing installation Windows XP by Launching
Vista's setup from within XP and choose the upgrade option. Make sure you
have a minimum 13 GBs free space.

If I create another partition, can I install and run both XP Pro & Vista
Ultimate on the
same machine selecting one or the other at boot up.

Yes, Windows Vista will install its own boot manager, this will allow you
to select Windows XP from under the entry "Earlier version of Windows".

If not, can I go back to XP without losing everything if I don't like Vista?

If you upgrade from XP, you cannot uninstall Vista, you will have to
reinstall XP from scratch. But if you dual boot XP and Vista on separate
partitions, all you have to do is format the Vista partition. You can
delete the Vista partition with a tool like EasyBCD:

EasyBCD by NeoSmart Technologies would be your answer, it provides a
graphical front end to the BCDEdit Command line that makes it easy for you
to define start-up settings and edit boot entries on the new Windows
Longhorn Server/Vista boot manager. http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

 

[Lang Murphy]

Run the Vista Upgrade Advisor. It's not perfect, for sure, but it's better
than nothing.

When upgrading a major OS version, as XP to Vista is... due diligence is in
order. Otherwise you may be severely dissapointed. Some in here would say
you'll be severely dissappointed no matter what. I am not one of that group.
It's up to you to figure out if your 4 year old <insert hw device here> will
work in Vista. It may, it may not. The main thing is: are there drivers
for -all- of your hardware and are they solid or buggy? Are you willing to
purchase new hardware if your legacy hardware doesn't work in Vista?

There are issues when dual booting XP and Vista. You need to be cognizant of
those issues prior to jumping into the fray. Plenty of posts in this NG
regarding dual booting XP/Vista... use the search function to find the
threads.

Personally, I would always do a "clean" install as opposed to an upgrade.
Vista's upgrade is different that prior Win OS upgrades, in that every
install, even upgrading, is a "clean" install. Plenty of detail on that in
this NG too. And -I- would still elect to do a "clean" install. That's just
my preference, not saying anyone else has to take that as gospel.

Good luck,

Lang