XP to Vista Upgrade. I can't.

[Otter]

Hello. I was wondering if any of you tech folks could offer some suggestions...

I have a PC that has Windows XP Media Center Edition Professional 2002 installed on it. I wanted to upgrade to one of the versions of Vista. I was reading on a Microsoft page about the various upgrade paths for the various versions of XP to the various versions of Vista.

It looks like with the 2002 edition of XP Media Center there isn't an upgrade path; they show a clean install is required. That stinks.

I hate the thought of doing a complete clean install. It would take days...

Do I have any other options? Can I get another drive, install Vista (or maybe 7) on it and dual boot? Suggestions?

My system, FWIW, is:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66 GHz
4 GB Dual - Channel DDR2 @ 333MHz
Gigabyte EP45-UD3L Socket 775 MB
GeForce 8600 GTS (nVidia)
3 hard drives
2 DVD drives

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[JPS]

IMHO don't even bother with Vista ! It has been proved it was full of bugs...

Instead, upgrade to Windows 7, a lot more stable -though it's Microsoft :m79:- !

You shouldn't have any problem installing Win 7 over XP... it's quite straightforward !

:wink:
J-P.

 

[nuclearjock]

JP makes a good point about Windows 7. But I have XP as well as vista 64 bit on my home system. I use a separate drive for each as opposed to partitioning a single drive, and I also use vistabootpro to select the operating system I want to use at startup. I obtained it as freeware, they're charging $9.95 for it now.

I don't know about media center, but vista 64 bit and I think windows 7 will allow you to use >3 gigs or ram which will make a big difference in post processing speed. With drives being as cheap as they are today, I would probably go the multiple drive route and have the best of both worlds. Works really well for me.

 

[Growltiger]

You will be far, far, better off gritting your teeth and doing a clean install of Windows 7, 64 bit. It will run faster and in less memory than Vista, and it also has the Vista bugs fixed!

 

[williadw]

EXACTLY....

Vista.. (ugh)

Save yourself the trouble.

IMHO don't even bother with Vista ! It has been proved it was full of bugs...

Instead, upgrade to Windows 7, a lot more stable -though it's Microsoft :m79:- !

You shouldn't have any problem installing Win 7 over XP... it's quite straightforward !

:wink:
J-P.

 

[ddietiker]

You will be far, far, better off gritting your teeth and doing a clean install of Windows 7, 64 bit. It will run faster and in less memory than Vista, and it also has the Vista bugs fixed!

This ^

I always do clean upgrades. Too many odd bits left over when upgrading over top of previous OS.

 

[Lurker]

IMHO don't even bother with Vista ! It has been proved it was full of bugs

The biggest issues weren't with Vista itself. Most of the Vista crashes were caused by faulty drivers. Drivers, that required signage (for DRM protection reasons demanded by movie studios and record labels) so instead of actually checking the drivers MS signed the drivers without looking as there were too many requests for driver signage for them to handle.

I think that the only reason MS didn't litigate Nvidia into oblivion is because officially MS had signed off on the drivers and given them a stamp of approval. Just semantics? Maybe. But Vista in itself is a fine operating system and not as bug-prone as it's reputation is.

Still there's no good reason for upgrading to vista when you can upgrade to W7.

 

[Otter]

Thanks a ton everybody. What you all say makes perfect sense.

 

[les_au]

do your self a favor just got to windows 7, it takes about 25 minuts to install from scratch and normally finds all yhe drivers etc that you need

 

[Ronald M]

Put in Windows 7. YOu are better off with XP than Vista which will suck the life out of your computer

 

[rpracing]

Its going to be a fresh install from XP to vista or 7 period.

Seriously just skip vista altogether. Also its always best to just do a fresh install. So much cleaner and less hassle. Took me 2 hrs to do an "update" from vista to 7 on my laptop and 2 hours to do a full install of 7 on my moms pc from XP with an upgrade disk.

 

[euua]

Windows 7 as well - get it
Or maybe get XP Pro to keep you for some time

Vista is waist of time and space