Re: Upgrading to Windows 7 from Vista Home Premium...

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Dorango wrote:
On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:41:49 -0400, "Peter Foldes" <okf22@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Ross

A formatting and a clean install will be required either way,

No it won't, you can do an in-place upgrade from Vista > Win7 but it
is not the recommended method.


Not recommended by whom, precisely?

Granted, some people will always blindly recommend that one always perform a clean installation, rather than upgrade over an earlier OS. For the most part, I feel that these people, while usually well-meaning, are living in the past, and are either basing their recommendation on their experiences with much older operating systems, or are simply inexperienced and uninformed.

Certainly, there are times when an in-place upgrade is contra-indicated:

1) When the underlying hardware isn't certified as being fully compatible with the newer OS, and/or updated device drivers are not available from the device's manufacturer. Of course, this condition also causes problems with clean installations.

2) When the original OS is corrupt, damaged, and/or virus/malware infested. I've also seen simple, straight-forward upgrades from WinXP Home to WinXP Pro fail because the computer owner had let the system become malware-infested. Upgrading over a problematic OS isn't normally a wise course to establishing a stable installation.

3) When the new OS isn't designed to properly, correctly, and safely perform an upgrade.

A properly prepared and maintained PC can almost always be successfully upgraded by a knowledgeable and competent individual. I've lost count of the systems I've seen that have been upgraded from Win95 to Win98 to Win2K to WinXP (usually with incremental hardware upgrades over the same time period), without the need for a clean installation, and that are still operating without any problems attributable to upgrades.

Additionally, since Vista's and Win7's upgrade "mechanism" differ widely from that of earlier operating systems, why would you think that the same "old wives' tales" would apply?


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