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Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 Upgrade advice

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40hz:
Ahhh... siblings! They love us, they admire us, they twist our arms!:-\



OK. I shouldn't need to ask this, but since I've never personally done an upgrade this way, I figured I'd ask you folks if you have any advice, tips, or traps to be aware of when doing an 'in place' XP to Vista to Win7 upgrade?

Background:

My sister is a happy WinXP user. She briefly tried Vista and absolutely hated it. So much so that she bought all her later machines with the XP 'downgrade' option - and used it.

Now, she has reluctantly acknowledged she's going to have to change her OS in the near future and decided (after trying it) that she could live with Windows 7.

She would like to do an "in place" upgrade to Windows 7 since she has a few important custom-written pieces of business software that she does not have any media for. (Needless to say, the programmer who developed and installed them for her is long gone and not to be found.) She would very much like to continue using these programs if at all possible, assuming they'll work under Win7. Since they were developed using .NET I'm fairly confident they will.

I explained that she can't do an "in place" from XP to 7, and that the Microsoft migration tool will only handle data and settings and can't move installed programs.

After her predictable 'expression of delight" at hearing this, she then asked the obvious question:

Why not upgrade XP to Vista first (since she already had licenses and OEM media for Vista) - and then go from Vista to 7 after she bought copies of the Win7 upgrade?

Since I haven't seen her OEM (Dell) media yet, I'm guessing it's most likely an OS 'recovery' type disk, which would preclude using it to upgrade to XP. I explained that problem and how it may be possible to use her activation key in conjunction with a retail Vista upgrade disk, but that I couldn't guarantee it would work since I've been both successful and unsuccessful in doing that. It seems to depend on which brand of PC, and how willing Microsoft is to cut the owner some slack if you have to call them to get activation resolved when you do it this way. (I've had about a 70% success rate with that BTW.) If I can get her to Vista we're home free.

So...any upgrade advice or suggestions for a guy like me whose insistence on "nothing but clean OS installs" borders on mania?

Thanks! :)

mouser:
probably not what you want to hear but i'd consider sticking with xp.
and i'm a fan of "nothing but clean OS installs"

with the price of PC's these days, what i always recommend is:

* keep your old pc and don't try to upgrade it; if it works well enough, leave it alone.
* when you are ready to move up, buy a new computer, with windows 7 (or whatever) on it.
* leave both machines in runnable state for a month as you migrate over any data, and take your time leisurely testing, etc.
* after a month or so when everything runs perfectly on your new pc, and you know all your data is on the new pc and fine, then you can consider putting the old pc in a closet in case you need it one day.

40hz:
...

probably not what you want to hear


-mouser (March 04, 2010, 01:27 PM)
--- End quote ---

No...but it's pretty much what I expected to hear.  ;D

Agree on all your points. (Said as much to her myself come to think of it. ;D )

Unfortunately, new machines aren't gonna happen: $$$ combined with the fact they're all less than a year old.

And going over to Win7 is something she does need to do for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with technology - and everything to do with a key client's requirement. (Don't ask. I personally think the client's reasons for wanting her on 7 are totally bogus, but there ya have it.)

Obviously not an ideal situation hence my looking into the kludge approach.

mouser:
first things first, make images of the hard drives onto an external usb drive.. at least that way you can always go back.

mouser:
btw:
"LOGIC is no longer an option"
that's great, love it.  ;D

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