I am at the point where my XP Pro install is probably due a good blowing away and re-installing. I am aware that just upgrading XP Pro to Vista will be very time consuming (took well over 3 hours when I went from my original XP pro to the first release about a year ago and lots of stuff was messed up and I ended up reformatting and starting again with a clean install). This is my conceptual plan:
* This time I want to back up my settings with the "file & settings transfer
wizard" on the XP box to one of my server shares.
* Back up all my important document stuff to the server.
* Then I will format everything on my PC and clean install Vista Ultimate.
* Finally restore my settings back from the server using the Vista FSTW
Presumably the Vista FSTW equivalent can read the XP versions files, or
should I expect troubles trying to do this?
As SP1 looms, it's probably time to go back to Vista after I tried it when on the Beta and RC releases and had a few problems with compatibility with other bits of kit. I am at the point where my XP Pro install is probably due a good blowing away and re-installing. I am aware that just upgrading XP Pro to Vista will be very time consuming (took well over 3 hours when I went from my original XP pro to the first release about a year ago and lots of stuff was messed up and I ended up reformatting and starting again with a clean install). This is my conceptual plan:
* This time I want to back up my settings with the "file & settings transfer wizard" on the XP box to one of my server shares.
* Back up all my important document stuff to the server.
* Then I will format everything on my PC and clean install Vista Ultimate.
* Finally restore my settings back from the server using the Vista FSTW
Presumably the Vista FSTW equivalent can read the XP versions files, or should I expect troubles trying to do this?
Install Vista by following one of the guides below:
Clean install from an Upgrade Disk Clean install with a full version of Vista
Then download and install Vista Service Pack 1
Vista 32 bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone Vista 64 bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems
Then download and install Vista Service Pack 2. 32bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Five Language Standalone. 64bit: Windows Vista Service Pack 2 Five Language Standalone for x64-based Systems. Once Vista and both service packs are installed and you are at the desktop, install only your Security software (eg Anti Virus, Firewall etc) and update them........
I want to do a true clean re-install of Vista Ultimate, and wipe out all data on my hard drive (not a clean lite re-install). When I select drive D I'm told it's too small to use for the install. I'm unable to resize this drive.
I need wipe off entire C drive and perform a clean install Vista over current installed Vista. Here is the steps I went through and had problem finally:
1. I boot up with Vista Home Edition DVD;
2. Get on "Install Now" window, and click the "Install Now" get into next step;
3. The update option is disabled (which is good because I need clean install), I click the advanced option, the next window only show couple partitions without showing C drive!
4. After all the tries to load drive, refresh drive, etc. The C drive never show up!!
How can I get clean re-install over exist vista system?
My computer just died, with a complex Vista installation on a 250 GB drive. I have a replacement unit on its way, but is there any way to transfer the drive with the Vista install to the new computer and get a working system? My Vista is a full retail copy. I'm now working on XP from my backup machine, an old Dell Optiplex GX200, with a 733 MHZ P3 that's not capable of running Vista. I could reinstall Vista, but would lose an awful lot of data and installed programs.
yesterday i created a new vista dvd with vLite, because my windows folder was too big. after that i tried to do a "repair/upgrade install", like explained in this tutorial - Repair Install For Vista
as it turned out, it went completly wrong. i reinstalled vista on C: and the old version was moved to the folder Windows.old. obviously not that, what i want to accomplish. so now im online with a new user account - "lost" the user settings from my old user account, the programs are not "installed" anymore.
here is a small comparison of my situation:
- on C: i got now a new fresh windows and the old version in the folder in Windows.old
- Windows.old contains:
-- my old user settings
-- my old programms installed on C: (not a big deal, because i installed almost all programms on E: ---> other problem, see below)
-- the old windows folder himself
- as mentioned above i installed almost all programms on E: - obviously they are still there, but they are not "installed" anymore
so here are my key questions:
1. is there an easy was to transfer my old user settings to the new one?
2. is there an easy was to "install" all the programms on E:, without reinstall all per hand? eg. about registry import or something like that...
i hope it is clear, what my problems are - english is not my native language...
I've been using an administrator account for all my daily computing needs. I understand that this is a bad idea so I created another account, standard account, to use. Is there a way to transfer all my settings and program shortcuts etc to this new account or does everything have to be done individually. If this is the case then it's way too much fooling around for my liking and I'll stick with the administrator account.
Last week I upgraded a HPxw4400X workstation from WinXP Pro w/SP3 to Vista Business. I did a full backup and also used FAST (files and settings transfer wizard). However, I soon found out that the DVD drive was "broke". HP told me it was because of the upgrade. They said to do a fresh install. Did another backup, fresh install, then a restore. Had lots of problems with BSOD, but a selective restore got it working again. But he can't see MS Office, nor navigate to it. I can see it when logged in as an admin. I thought of copying files and folders between profiles (he has 3 of 'em - , ., and ..000). The former is the oldest so I thought I could copy the App Data and User Data over it'd work (in both Documents and Settings, and Users), but it didn't work. I've been here working on various issues for 28 hours, so I'm not thinking as clearly as I'd like.
I'm assuming a clean install with an upgrade license will be identical to a clean install with a 'full' copy, except that at some point during the process, it will ask for my key for Windows XP? I just want to confirm this is the case before I go buy an upgrade copy. one last question to tack on here - if I have a desktop and a laptop computer will it let me install the same copy and license key of Vista on both? I know some MS products in the past have allowed you to install on more than one computer because they realize a lot of people have more than one computer but they only work with one at a given time.
i will be upgrading my Dell desktop from XP Pro to Vista Ultimate in the coming days and i need some opinions. I've never upgraded OS's before but i do understand the difference between a clean install and an in-place install. My question: what would you do and why would you chose one over the other?
I purchased a new PC and would now like to give my old PC. It had been upgraded from XP to Vista. I did a clean install with Vista and deleted the windows.old folder which was taking up space but the computer isn't as fast as it would be if I had formatted the drive before the install.
Clean install & SP1. If I do a clean install of Vista home premium will SP1 be the only Vista update that is downloaded and installed? I am wondering if all of the old updates are still hanging around somewhere that is listed in the installed history. Are there old files that could be removed after SP1 installation?
I apologize if this issue has been dealt with already but I can???t seem to find a solution. I have built a pc with AMDx2 4200, 2gb 800mhz ram, ECS AMD690GM-M2 board, sata 80gb hdisk, and pioneer dual layer drive. I have no add on cards and the motherboard is on failsafe settings. I have installed vista home premium 32 bit and the installation proceeds normally, and after the dialog boxes where the PC name is requested and the background, the system reboots and then does not boot beyond ?loading vista 2.1.2 ? starting ACPI ?. I have re-installed vista and the same problem occurs. I am not able to access a safe mode.
I wonder if there is a simple solution to this I am not aware of.
I picked up the Vista Ultimate DVD at the "Heroes" seminar. I'm trying to intstall it on my test machine. The machine has no DVD drive. I tried copying the DVD contents to a secondary partition, but I can't find any .exe files that will run from a dos boot. Is there any way to get Vista install started without a bootable DVD drive? I do have a CD drive on the machine...can I split the DVD into CD's? Anticipating the most likely input...let me say these...
Yes, I have googled my ass off. Yes, I have IDE DVD drives, I have external usb DVD drives. What I DO NOT HAVE is a way to get THIS machine to BOOT from any of them. Buying a new DVD drive won't help me. I can boot from a CD or floppy or hard drive. I want to do a CLEAN build without leftovers from previous OS. Yes, you can order Vista on CD if you want to wait...and they won't even tell you what it costs until you enter personal information...sorry, but that really chaps my...
it seem to find a solution. I have built a pc with AMDx2 4200, 2gb 800mhz ram, ECS AMD690GM-M2 board, sata 80gb hdisk, and pioneer dual layer drive. I have no add on cards and the motherboard is on failsafe settings. I have installed vista home premium 32 bit and the installation proceeds normally, and after the dialog boxes where the PC name is requested and the background, the system reboots and then does not boot beyond ???loading vista 2.1.2? starting ACPI?. I have re-installed vista and the same problem occurs. I am not able to access a safe mode. I wonder if there is a simple solution to this I am not aware of.
Everything I've read said that doing a clean install would delete all of my files during the process which is what I needed. I wanted everything off of my computer except what came on it. I called myself doing it correctly but when I checked, none of my files were gone and my Recovery D drive has no space left which is why I needed to do a clean install in the first place.
I have tried other hardisks, and all combinations of RAM in all slots, but Vista still locks up after a seemingly random period of time. The lock ups occur with a fresh install (with no other software installed), and sp1 has no effect. The starnge thing is XP (both x64 and x32) work perfectly fine. Where would I be able to get support for this bug (I have Vista x64 Ultimate OEM).
I have XP Home on my computer, and it works great. Should i do a clean install for best results? The only problem would be reinstalling many programs. I am unsure about the back-up and reinstalling method, and getting the programs to work as they did in XP.
I have uninstalled Vista, and I just have XP and Ubuntu. When I did a clean install on my semi-new franken computer, I was hitting 100% cpu usage, in both x64 and x 86, at idle. I disabled indexing, all services I could, and to no avail. I had Vista x86 running fine on another mobo with the same proc. and less RAM. But now on my seemingly FASTER computer, Vista is SLOWER than ever
Clean install & SP1. If I do a clean install of Vista home premium will SP1 be the only Vista update that is downloaded and installed? I am wondering if all of the old updates are still hanging around somewhere that is listed in the installed history. Are there old files that could be removed after SP1 installation?
what is a windows clean install? and how Do i obtain this? I think I know what this is but not sure exactly, maybe more of how do I achieve this state of "clean install"!
I want to sell an old Dell Latitude laptop, running Windows 2000 Pro. I want to make sure all my personal information is wiped clean from the laptop before I sell it. I bought it at a used computer store and they did not include the installation disks. I went there today and they are not willing to install an OS on it unless I pay $50. So, what are the steps to format my drive clean as a whistle, and then install a basic free OS (using my computer computer to download)?
The store told me I can put Ibunto Linux on it. But if I wipe the disk clean first, maybe it won't recognize my CD-ROM (I have had trouble before with that drive and had to download a driver for my DVD player, etc).
Please tell me if you need more information. A CD holds 700 mb and the download I was looking at is 699 megs. I am guessing a DVD won't work in this situation?
I building an Intel Q6600 PC from scratch running x64 Home Premium. Upon getting it up and running to the point of the OS install I would like to ask about some basics and hear anything else offered.
- I'll be using 8GB RAM (4x2GB Cards) Corsair DDR2 800 PC6400 RAM. Should I start with 4GB and add the rest later. I hear I may need a MS patch? - I want a clean optimum install. I remember using the NTFS option in XPSP2. Any options like this I need to know about in Vx64? - Administrator options. I will be the only user of this machine. I want everything I do to be ran as administrator. I'll add a guest account if it's ever needed. What say you? - I hear some DVD optical drives (Lite-On LH-20A1L-06 SATA) have issues in Vista. Will I need the MS kb929777 patch? - Photoshop CS3 is supposed to run really well in x64 but is a 32bit program. This will most likely be the first thing I install. I hear some have to command prompt to SysWOW64 and do a regsvr32 jscript.dll and a regsvr32 vbscript.dll?
I find that I am able to boot up the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD (from Vista). Can I perform a Clean Install from the DVD ? This is because I learn that a lot of fellows have problems in upgrading from Vista.Besides, if we can perform a clean install from the Upgrade DVD, what will be the difference between an Upgrade DVD and a Standard one ?
My ageing Thinkpad with XP Pro died so I've decided to build a new custom desktop from scratch. Can I install Vista Ultimate upgrade directly without having to install XP first? I would like to have a clean install of Vista, not an upgrade. Also since XP Pro license was activated on the Thinkpad, do I need to call MS and get another activation key??
I build a computer last night for a relative and could not get a clean install on the system, always got BSOD. I tried XP Pro (error), Vista Ultimate x86 and even Vista Ultimate x64 but always had some issue. I did remove all external USB/Firewire/Sound/TV Tuner card etc so it was only running on Mainboard/1 Ram Stick/HDD/ DVD Burner and Video card. Still get an BSOD so i changed the RAM for one out of my wifes computer but it didnt make a difference. Hate to think my sister inlaw got a faulty product as she has gone back home out west with reciept and had to leave the computer with me to resolve the issue. Any ideas what maybe causing this as i had a late night on it and i am to damn tired to think of what else apart from a fauly pasrt it could be.
I decided to do a clean install of Vista Home Premium, on a computer that hasn't had any problems running it. I reformatted the drive, did the install, and after several repeated attempts doing it, I did it one final time, and let it sit for 8 hours, hoping time would clear it up, it didn't. It boots as far as the screen that has the green progress bar on the bottom, then the screen goes blank, as if it suddenly stopped sending data to the monitor. Rebooting using safe mode yields an error that it cannot finish installing in safe mode. Graphics are via ATI x1900, but I'm also plugged into the onboard graphics, neither gives me anything. An attempt to install XP on it worked fine, so the hardware should all be fine. Is Vista running something in the background that takes endless hours, or is something seriously messed up here?
I was running Vista x86 and built a new cp which gave me this ability to run x64. I downloaded Vista 64x from a site, after hearing I can use my x86 Vista key with x64. I installed the x64 version and didnt register right away, thinking id have no problem since I did in fact have a valid Vista Ultimate key. Well low and behold, ive come to the point where I have to register. I use the key and get the error basically saying the key wont work because it is for an Upgrade only, not clean install. I dont believe it's possible to simply Upgrade and installation from x86 to x64.
