Frankenstein Vista?

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rexy · #1 Post by **rexy** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:28 pm

Is there any downside to installing a upgrade version of Vista as oppossed to a clean install?
Other then the intial set-up maybe taking longer?
Would the Vista upgrade be a frankenstein mix of some leftover stuff from XP and most from Vista, or will all of XP's Data be fully erased?

DAH · #2 Post by **DAH** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:35 pm

It will be a mix, and if you're not careful some programs can't be un-installed, like DLA (Drive Letter Access)

kulivontot · #3 Post by **kulivontot** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:30 pm

I would recommend strongly against upgrading. With all the changes in the way they do registry and the general architecture of Vista, there will be a lot of things that don't quite transfer correctly. Also, as others have said, there are some software programs that will become uninstallable.

#4 Post by **jdhurst** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:49 pm

I agree with these sentiments. I would never do an OS upgrade. I have seen most of them go so horribly wrong that they all had to be redone. I have seen a trivially small number succeed, only followed by a mess to fixed.

I guess some people succeed, but no one I know, so I am only speaking for myself.
... JD Hurst

pianowizard · #5 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:55 pm

jdhurst wrote:I would never do an OS upgrade.

I did an upgrade once, I think from Win98SE to Win2K, because I thought that would save me time. Wrong! It took three times as long as doing a clean install.

rexy · #6 Post by **rexy** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 8:59 pm

Oh boy.
I'm more confused than ever!
Just went to the MS Vista web site, and according to them:
If a person is upgrading from XP Professional to Vista Premium it requires a CLEAN installation.
and all the XP data is erased and lost. ( which I prefer )

not the case from reg XP to Premium upgrade, or XP pro to Ultimate upgrade,
only XP professional to Premium upgrade

It makes it seem like a FULL install.

http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/conte ... 95&tabid=1

Any thoughts?

K0LO · #7 Post by **K0LO** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:11 pm

I just finished a Vista install myself. When installing you will get to choose between an upgrade install (if available) or a clean install. You can always do a clean install. You can't always do an upgrade install, as the previous post points out.

I went with a clean install even though I could have done an upgrade. It may seem to be more work at first, but it's worth it.

cxls · #8 Post by **cxls** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:18 pm

I upgraded from XP Pro to Vista Business and it worked flawlessly. The only issue is currently that the Presentation Manager doesn't correctly open when you press Fn+F7, despite the fact that the settings are set to open up the profile selector.

dfumento · #9 Post by **dfumento** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:46 pm

I lacked the time for now to do a clean install so I did the upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate which took several hours overall but little intervention on my part and it works well. I do have Registry Mechanic which I used.

To the previous poster, check my sticky at the beginning of this Vista forum because you may have the wrong version of Presentation Director. My version of PD works.

rexy · #10 Post by **rexy** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:12 pm

I lacked the time for now to do a clean install so I did the upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate which took several hours overall

Wow! If it took several hours to just do the upgrade, how much time would the clean install take?

cxls · #11 Post by **cxls** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:17 pm

I have the version you posted. It works. I just can't get to the profile selector. :/

pianowizard · #12 Post by **pianowizard** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:20 pm

rexy wrote:Wow! If it took several hours to just do the upgrade, how much time would the clean install take?

Much less than that, like 20 minutes. But of course, after that one needs to reinstall all programs and drivers.

#13 Post by **tomh009** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 11:34 pm

rexy wrote:Oh boy.
I'm more confused than ever!
Just went to the MS Vista web site, and according to them:
If a person is upgrading from XP Professional to Vista Premium it requires a CLEAN installation.
and all the XP data is erased and lost. ( which I prefer )

not the case from reg XP to Premium upgrade, or XP pro to Ultimate upgrade, only XP professional to Premium upgrade

Basically ...

XP Home -> Vista Home : upgrade
XP Pro -> Vista Pro: upgrade
XP Pro-> Vista Home: clean install

And for Vista, Basic/Premium are home editions, while Business/Ultimare are effectively work editions.

rexy · #14 Post by **rexy** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:29 am

I am STILL confused.
My HD is going. Lenovo is going to send me a new one tues with the R&R disk.
I want to have vista.
I want either the Premium or Utimate full editions, but they are very pricey.
I am not comfortable loading Vista myself.
The bestbuy in my area has a special where they will install vista for free ( any version) .
if I buy the Premium upgrade for 159.00 ( seems like the best deal for me) do they have to first install the XP from the R&R disk just to erase it to then load the Premium?
And would they consider that loading TWO O.S.s ? ( not charging my for one installation, but charging me for the other?)
and if so, should I avoid that and just buy a Full Premium or Utimate version and avoid possible headaches?

#15 Post by **tomh009** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:48 am

Once you have the new disk, do the R&R. It's really quite straight-forward, just follow along with the prompts, and it will restore you to a working Windows XP.

You can then take your ThinkPad to Best Buy, and have them do the upgrade for you. (And, yes, unfortunately Vista upgrade requires that XP is installed and activated.)

DAH · #16 Post by **DAH** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:15 am

rexy wrote:I am STILL confused.
My HD is going. Lenovo is going to send me a new one tues with the R&R disk.
I want to have vista.
I want either the Premium or Utimate full editions, but they are very pricey.
I am not comfortable loading Vista myself.

If you're not comfortable loading vista then perhaps you should not install it. While I don't know the store where you live of course, I do have a hard time believing that they will do more than a basic install. Pop the disk in and let it do it's thing. Someone is still going to need to go to Lenovo web site and download and install their drivers. Someone will need to install your programs, be they office, word or what ever. Installing Vista is relative simple, and I believe something you should do. My guess is we will see a fair amount of drivers that need to be installed and or updated over the next six months or so.

dfumento · #17 Post by **dfumento** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:41 pm

rexy wrote:
I lacked the time for now to do a clean install so I did the upgrade from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate which took several hours overall
Wow! If it took several hours to just do the upgrade, how much time would the clean install take?

With a clean install, you must reinstall all of your applications which can take forever. With the upgrade, it just took a lot of elapsed time but little intervention. The actual clean install takes little time.

rexy · #18 Post by **rexy** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:21 pm

I am not a TOTAL idiot. (well, maybe sometimes.)
I have reloaded XP in the past, when my system crashed.
But it was from the BIOS.
And I reloaded my programs, updates and drivers.
Not fun but that I was cool with.
What I have never done before is load a new HardDrive.
Never formatted one.
That's the part I'm worried about.
And some of the other posts I have read on this Vista forum about other peoples experience properly loading vista has somewhat scared me.
Do I need to format the new HardDrive that comes from lenovo?
Is loading vista really as idiot proof as your making it seem?
Maybe an Full Ultimate Oem version is the best way for me to go
( half the price, no loading of XP, no mixing of O.S. no registry worries.)

#19 Post by **tomh009** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:39 pm

The XP install will offer to format the hard drive for you -- just say "yes".

When you install the Vista upgrade you can choose "custom install" to get a clean Vista install rather than an upgrade of your existing XP.

rexy · #20 Post by **rexy** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:59 pm

if I go with a full OEM utimate install, will vist also offer to format the HD for me?

thanks nick.

#21 Post by **tomh009** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 3:13 pm

"Full" as in not upgrade? If so, yes, it'll take care of formatting the disk.

Turbo Audi · #22 Post by **Turbo Audi** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:10 am

I did a command line OS upgrade once (Linux) It was fun counting the # of bugs I found. Clean installs for me from now on.

rexy · #23 Post by **rexy** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 6:35 am

Well I took the dive, and attempted to install a full Ultimate Vista version on my Blank replacement Sata hard drive ( Hitachi 60gb fru 39t2703)
The bios saw the Disk, Vista started up, I entered the activaction number, chose a Custom ( clean) install (only uption I had since Update was disabled), it showed my new HDD with the correct volume, BUT.... I kept getting a error message after that point, it refused to load the files on the HDD, saying " can't assign disk letter to partition, load driver. What??? The HDD did not come with any driver, and I could not find it ANYWHERE. After a lot of grief
someone at lenovo said I, or anyone for that matter could not load Vista without It having XP on it already. That the HDD driver was locked,/bundled with XP. So I loaded Vista on my old HDD ( exact model as the replacement) which while buggy, still works. The Lenovo&Microsoft tech guys said as long as I did not enter the activation key, I could reload Vista on my new HDD as long as it was within a month.
And they both believed that within that time, there would be a stand alone HDD driver.

Is this info right?

Is there no way to Put vista on a brand new HD without first loading XP on it?

And if so, is there a easy way for me to just move everything from my old HD ( Which has Vista and the driver ) to my new Blank HD
without having to use the XP R&R first?

DAH · #24 Post by **DAH** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 9:55 am

Do you have access to a USB floppy drive? If so copy the Intel Matrix Storage Manager Driver from C:\IBMTOOLS\DRIVERS\IMSM or C:\SWTOOLS\DRIVERS\IMSM to a diskette. On the old hard drive.

Swap the new hard drive in. Insert the DVD for Windows Vista into the DVD drive, and restart the computer.
To install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver first, press F6.
When prompted, select S for Specify Additional Device.
When prompted, insert the floppy diskette that you created above.

kf_man · #25 Post by **kf_man** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 10:51 am

I'm not sure I understand the story fully, but I installed a "Full" version of Vista Business (MSDNAA) on my laptop and I was able to format and install Vista without doing anything special. I was halfway through the installation when I realized that I hadn't changed the BIOS option or loaded a special driver! I don't believe the Storage Matrix driver is necessary and according to the Lenovo site, there is no version to use with Vista anyway.

One other thing you can try instead of using a driver is to try and set your your SATA drive to compatibility in the BIOS. I didn't see your machine type, but on my T60 this is how you install Windows without loading additional setup drivers. After the install has completed successfully you should be able to change the option back.

I am a little confused about one thing. You said you loaded Vista on your old drive, did it already have Windows XP installed on it? Did you do an upgrade to get Vista installed?

The only differences I see between your experience and mine are they my drive is a 100GB 5400RPM Fujitsu and that my drive had Windows XP on it at one time. When I went to load Vista on it, I ran the setup from boot, formatted the drive using the setup tool, and started the installation. Within 30 minutes or so, Vista was installed successfully.

I'm probably confused on a few points here, so please help me understand better.

rexy · #26 Post by **rexy** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:06 pm

Hi.

I did set the bios to compatibility mode.
and the oem ultimate full vista was unable to load on a NEW BLANK HDD.
With my version, the upgrade mode is disabled, ONLY allowing a FULL/ClEAN install.
But everything I tried in the set up from "new" to delete" to "format" to load the files did not work.
I was able VERY easily to load vista on my old buggy hd (same exact model/type) that had xp on it in about 30 minutes doing a full/clean install.
Now to add a new twist to this nightmare.
Last night I said the heck with it and gave up on trying to load ny new blank hdd with vista, and went to install th exp R&R cds first as a base
as per the guys I first spoke to at MS/Lenovo tech.
As the proper first R&R disk was going thur its motions the load froze and loacked up. giving me a error message " this program has ended due to an internal error" I called lenovo tech and the man strongly felt the media disk was bad, and said he would resend the disk and a new HD once again.
So... I once again, said let my try to load Viasta on this still black new hdd, and just to make 100% sure I am doing the right thing called Viasta surport again.
I got a man that said the other people were wrong and I was going thur the wrong steps! he said that in the install screen I had to chose ( because the hdd was totaly blank with no prior os) the "repair my computer" option, then chose "Command prompt"
and once in, type " format c:" guess what? it saw that it was a RAW file and said it would convert to new file type.
I typed Y to agree and it started to format.
THEN it stopped saying that it could not continue because the hdd had bad sectors!
The guess from the tech guy was the hdd got corurpted because of the failed xp R&R process due to the bad disk.
Now all I have to do is wait for another hdd and do that new command prompt set-up.
Whew.. sorry this was long winded.
Nick.

kf_man · #27 Post by **kf_man** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:18 pm

Well, it sounds like you were doing nothing wrong then and the hard drive was the problem here. Hopefully once you get the new hard drive you will be able to install Vista quickly and easily!

rexy · #28 Post by **rexy** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:36 pm

I guess...

I am just not sure why I had/have to do a command prompt to format the new blank hdd in the 'repair my computer section"
I thought and so did other ms/lenovo tech guys I first spoke to that Vista would auto format during regular/normal installation.

kf_man · #29 Post by **kf_man** » Thu Feb 08, 2007 2:39 pm

From the sounds of it, when you used the command prompt to format your new hd, the utility reported that it had bad sectors. If that's so then the new hard drive is defective and causing the problems here. That's definitely not the way it should work, I never used the command prompt to do anything during my Vista install. I would wait for the new hard drive to come and give Vista another shot, I honestly believe that the problem is an almost DOA drive from Lenovo.

Truthfinder · #30 Post by **Truthfinder** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 9:37 pm

Keep XP and give it about 6 months, giving M.S. time to patch all the bugs in Vista.
Installing Vista now will be good for one headahe after the next...

Vista is Glutware, aside from needing a million fixes...................

My 2 cents.................

Truthfinder

Frankenstein Vista?

Frankenstein Vista?

Well I tried.

The saga continues...

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