Surprised by Win7

[J-Mac]

I have the full version on DVD. If you want to do it as an upgrade from Vista boot into Vista as normal and then insert the disc and follow the prompts.

You can buy upgrades online with a download. Personally I think they are to be avoided as the DVD acts as a rescue media in case of problems. With the download you don't get that - although you can no doubt find instructions via google on how to produce an ISO file from the MS WIM file.

-Carol Haynes (November 03, 2009, 01:40 PM)

Thanks for the advice, Carol. I will go the DVD route.

PS: Beware EasyBCD is buggy as hell.

-Carol Haynes (November 03, 2009, 01:40 PM)

Thanks - I just wasn't familiar with the term "BCD". I googled it and got a Wikipedia link to EasyBCD near the top, so I mistakenly thought that was what you were talking about. Now I see that BCD is just the term for the way that Vista boots, rather than boot.ini. And I guess Win7 uses the same.

Thanks again,

Jim

[siouxdax]

How is it that every time I post here I spark such vigorous conversation? I love it. I must wave my magical wand here more often. (Yikes, that sounds vaguely obscene. LOL.)

[Carol Haynes]

Now I see that BCD is just the term for the way that Vista boots, rather than boot.ini.

-J-Mac (November 03, 2009, 02:10 PM)

That's right. The trouble is that boot.ini was relatively easy to edit. BCD is much more complicated and hardwork. EasyBCD was written (along with a number of other attempts) to give an easy graphical interface. To a certain extent EasyBCD works OK but there are so many bugs it is hard to get exactly what you want and it only supports a small subset of the BCD command set.

[MilesAhead]

edit:

VistaBootPro free:

http://www.softpedia...s/VistaBootPRO.shtml

now it's morphed into Dual Boot Pro for about $10:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

I don't know how useful it is for day to day operations.  But following the guide for adding XP to a PC with Vista already installed, VistaBootPro made fixing up the boot manager easy. Only thing is in the case of XP you still have to get around the "ntldr missing or corrupt" error.

afa my ugrade to W7 experiences, I did the "custom install" on top of Vista32 and got the 206,000 file Windows.old folder but everything seemed to work ok.  Doing the same on Vista64 my start menu was hosed and it was generally unrewarding.  Vist64 SP1 felt so much like W7 without the Superbar that I just put Vista64 back on.  It runs smooth on my quad core.  Don't see any reason to change it.

edit2: btw this is all beta W7.  I doubt I'll purchase W7 until it comes with SP1 integrated.

edit3: this link may also be useful:
http://www.sevenforu...bcdedit-how-use.html

[Innuendo]

Doing the same on Vista64 my start menu was hosed and it was generally unrewarding.

-MilesAhead (November 03, 2009, 02:29 PM)

A friend had start menu trouble & it came to pass that it had something to do with having pinned items on the start menu. Don't know if that's the cause of your trouble or not, though.

[RGerryH]

New. Ran across a DC thread from `06 on; "Software that can migrate installed (working) applications from one drive to another".  Wow! That subject drew a crowd. Then, began looking for any continuation or updates on the subject but can't seem to find any??? Must be doing something wrong. Help please.

Thanks

[Darwin]

Welcome to DC, RGerryH! I just did a search of the forum for "migrate" and came up with this: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2540.0

Is this the thread you were reading? There are a few suggested options linked to in that thread as well as an alpha for SHJunction by Jeremy Colake (db90h). If that's the application you're referring to, why not contact its author directly via his e-mail address at the bottom of his webpage (www.bitsum.com)?

[RGerryH]

Thanks, Ill try that.

Welcome to DC, RGerryH! I just did a search of the forum for "migrate" and came up with this: https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2540.0

Is this the thread you were reading? There are a few suggested options linked to in that thread as well as an alpha for SHJunction by Jeremy Colake (db90h). If that's the application you're referring to, why not contact its author directly via his e-mail address at the bottom of his webpage (www.bitsum.com)?

-Darwin (November 04, 2009, 12:34 PM)

[/color]

[MilesAhead]

Doing the same on Vista64 my start menu was hosed and it was generally unrewarding.

-MilesAhead (November 03, 2009, 02:29 PM)

A friend had start menu trouble & it came to pass that it had something to do with having pinned items on the start menu. Don't know if that's the cause of your trouble or not, though.

-Innuendo (November 03, 2009, 08:29 PM)

I never pin items to the start menu.  If I use it at all it's to uninstall something or to launch something I use so little that the only shortcut is there.
I may have tried the straight upgrade. I don't remember for sure. I think that's what it was.  Even though I only have Vista64 Home Premium with Shadow Explorer I can get old versions of files from Restore Point sets.  Doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I have no use for domains.

[Innuendo]

I never pin items to the start menu.  If I use it at all it's to uninstall something or to launch something I use so little that the only shortcut is there.

-MilesAhead (November 04, 2009, 01:18 PM)

Oh well...it was a shot in the dark. Sorry it wasn't more helpful.

[Carol Haynes]

Anyone using win 7 with dial up? Any issues? I have a client that used to use dial up without any issue but someone kindly installed Win 7 (not me) on her system and now dial up won't work.

I have found a number of support forums logging issues with dial up but without any real reason.

[Innuendo]

I've got a tentative vague appointment with a client in a couple days to work out their dialup issues. They want to try to figure it out themselves first as it's quite a drive for me, but I'll report back if I have to make the house call.

[Carol Haynes]

Thanks

[MilesAhead]

I never pin items to the start menu.  If I use it at all it's to uninstall something or to launch something I use so little that the only shortcut is there.

-MilesAhead (November 04, 2009, 01:18 PM)

Oh well...it was a shot in the dark. Sorry it wasn't more helpful.

-Innuendo (November 05, 2009, 10:30 AM)

Not at all.  I figured W7 straight upgrade wouldn't work, but I thought, if I can put it on without reconfiguring all my apps it's worth a try.  I just laid a Vista64 image back down when I found a few things were flaky.  So far the Custom upgrade seems to work well. I haven't tried the clean install yet.  If I go that way I think I'll just spring for an OEM disk instead of messing around with registry hacks or double installs or whatnot.

[Innuendo]

If I go that way I think I'll just spring for an OEM disk instead of messing around with registry hacks or double installs or whatnot.

-MilesAhead (November 05, 2009, 05:21 PM)

I think if I were doing it rather than buying again what you essentially have I would look into building an ISO image that at the end of the intall routine executed a .reg file that made the necessary registry entries automatically.

I miss the days of when installing upgrade media the installer would pause & allow you to insert your previous OS disc in the drive for validation rather than insisting that previous OS was currently installed.