Windows 7 Upgrade

[RustyJC]

OK, earlier this year I purchased a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Vista pre-installed - part of the deal was that I would get a Windows 7 upgrade when it was released.

So, now I have the Windows 7 upgrade DVD in the desk drawer next to the laptop and (with this not being my first rodeo) I guess I'm getting cold feet about sticking the disk into the drive.

Has anyone out there made the Vista to Windows 7.0 upgrade? Any problems? Anything to look out for? For example, Vista, Office 2007, etc. were all pre-loaded when I bought the laptop and I didn't get any disks and am not sure that I have product keys in the limited documentation that one gets with a new computer these days - is that going to be a show-stopper right in the middle of the upgrade install? Another example - I was finally able to find a print driver for my old HP Photosmart printer that I could use with Vista over our home 801.11n wireless network to use the HP as a network printer - if Windows 7.0 requires alternate drivers, that could present a problem.

I guess I'm looking for someone to make me feel warm and fuzzy about making this Windows 7 upgrade, or alternately someone to say, "Grasshopper, run! Don't do it!!"

Comments???

Rusty

[Gary RVRoamer]

I upgraded a year old Vista system to Win7 last month. Very smooth and no problems at all. I like Win7 much more - boots faster and seems to run faster too. Cleaner interface as well.

[MonacoMama]

Rusty...I think Driver did 3 blogs on the one he did on his wife's computer. (Why did he choose his wife's computer and not his? I wonder if he had the same syndrome as you??)

[EngineerMike]

Rusty- be afraid, be very afraid.

Hada friend just upgrade to W7. He had to reload all the useful software (i.e. the reason we own computers) so it would register properly w/the Windows Registry. Don't know if that included Office, but if it came from any other software outfit, he had to find the disks, or do a new download, and reconfigure the fresh software load.

Then, his hard drive was full (360gig) from an 80 gig or so pre-upgrade state. Turns out the migration install made 5 copies of Windows between the new and old versions (probably due to errors in the install automation). He took it to his local computer geek store, paid a coupla hours consulting rate to diagnose the overstuffed drive & figure out which of the various copies was the required version, then delete the Microgarbage versions.

I am a fellow Vista sufferer and have two major Vista gremlins (one fatal where I lose all unsaved data & requiring reboot). I'll do this migration when I have geek help standing by to de-Microsoft the installation when it barfs up, but first I won't do it until I see reports that the software reload problems are fixed. My buddy blew about 2 full days getting reloaded.

[EngineerMike]

Rusty- I just read DriVer's two blogs on upgrading his wife's computer from Vista. Very informative (thanks Mike!). Wish my wife had Vista on one of her computers so I could attempt it on hers like DirVer did. Very sly.

[BryanL]

The W7 upgrade usually offers 2 options. The Vista upgrade is the one you get it you insert the DVD while running Vista. That should keep your apps and settings in place.

If you boot off the DVD, you'll also get the option of a clean install. The clean install puts your old system into a separate directory as a backup so you do need some drive space but you'll get notified if there isn't sufficient space.

There is always a risk when upgrading system software but I think warnings like "be afraid, be very afraid" are way overblown. Of course, do make sure your backup is current. Do make sure you have all of your registration materials and install media for custom software you use. Do pay attention to the end user licenses and their various restrictions and limitations. Do make sure you have Vista capable drivers for any special hardware you may have.

The W7 upgrade to Vista should not be an issue if you take reasonable precautions.

[EngineerMike]

Of course I was being a little tongue in cheek w/the "be afraid..." rhetoric.

But I do have to remember that Vista was sold w/the exact, absolute lying hype that the cute Mac commercials acuse MSFT of using. Vista was supposed to be the carefully studied, debugged, stable, ultra fast, plug & play... that Windows had never been. And what is it? Far enough from that so as to prove the first sentence of this paragraph. I can't believe after all the flat out fraudulent "buzz" MSFT carefully orchestrated prior to Vista launch, that my tray periodically disappears so that working apps are inaccessible and I have to reboot, killing any unsaved data. Fear? Maybe not. Trusting the new (i.e. same old) fraudulent hype, till it proves itself in the marketplace? Lets just say, fool me once- shame on you; fool me twice...

I'll believe MSFT again when they seek out all the Vista sufferers who believed the fraud and plunked down our hard earned money, and they give me the software they said I was purchasing (for free this time, since I paid for it once already).
I guess I'm not completely over this Vista thing...

[RustyJC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BryanL Do make sure you have all of your registration materials and install media for custom software you use. Do pay attention to the end user licenses and their various restrictions and limitations.

And therein lies one of my concerns. Certain software (Quicken, for example) was purchased and downloaded from the software vendor via the Internet - no install CD/DVD exists.

Rusty

[BryanL]

very sorry to hear you encountered hassles ...

Much of the Vista bashing, like much OS bashing, is misplaced and based on perceptions and ad hoc experience extrapolations that are not well founded. There have been many recent advances in how people use computers and in the technologies underlying software systems and security. Vista reflected those advances and some folks were rather vocal in their insistence in wanting to keep old ways. The major fault for Microsoft was that they did not get their hardware and software partners up with the program soon enough to prevent some avoidable problems. That was addressed with W7.

re " Certain software (Quicken, for example) was purchased over and downloaded from the Internet - no install CD/DVD exists." - you should still have some record with license keys and links to support and downloads. If your purchase was a one shot, then you don't have much recourse except to buy again -- but that is one reason I tend to focus on FOSS and Ubuntu in particular to avoid that sort of hassle with license restrictions.

[a k]

I had windows Vista Home addition and they gave me Windows 7 Professional. It doesn't upgrade, it removed everything from the computer and started over. You can't upgrade from home to Pro. What a joke. My Cannon cameras won't load and Acrobat 7 Pro won't even work. I'm going back to XP

[EngineerMike]

Rusty- I have the same concerns with multiple download-based softwares, a couple of which are expensive. I've had the same experience when upgrading my pda-phone (within the same OS line, but a "better" version) and losing "registration" of purchased apps that I rely on constantly. I use a 190,000 word Spanish-English, English-Spanish dictionary when in Mexico regularly; I upgraded the phone and spent 2 weeks swapping emails w/the software vendor till they finally gave up and sent me an administrative key to unlock the silly thing. Then I upgraded the phone again, and guess what? The old key didn't work any more, so back to the email extravaganza.

Same problem makes me leery of MSFT's current hype about carefully studied, debugged, stable, ultra fast, plug & play... I'm pretty sure W7 is gonna unplug something I don't want unplugged, but I couldn't possibly predict what. So I want to see some more experience on the street before I rearrange my life to take a week off debugging the MSFT sales guy's idea of seamless.

[EngineerMike]

AK- again, a good concern. I have Vista Business, and have no idea how the experience stacks up migrating to various "versions" of W7.

However, you might want to rethink heading back to XP. Sounds from the "gotta scrub your XP hard drive" experience DriVer reported for upgrading his wife from Vista, that MSFT might be starting to pull support for its XP product line to force upgrades. They've done it before, sort of like trying to cut off somebody's air supply? I remember when the new version of Word didn't support the old Word file structure, after every previous upgrade would do that; MSFT wanted hostages that would be forced to upgrade to the new app. Ditto w/the Java incident and Sun Microsystems. I think its healthy to suspect this "new" dog of old tricks. IIWY, and had already taken the leap, I'd bludgeon my way thru to a fully successful W7 load (not pretty, not seamless, not user friendly... but you're a good piece of the way there).

Here is a PCWorld article on W7 Upgrade Issues. Interesting in the comment area where the successful upgraders are trying to talk the unsuccessful off the ledge.

[Gary - K7GLD]

Quote:

Here is a PCWorld article on W7 Upgrade Issues. Interesting in the comment area where the successful upgraders are trying to talk the unsuccessful off the ledge.

HMMmmmm - Vista Home Premium I have on my Gateway laptop is working just fine thank you - and after reading the mag article and related comments about 7, think I'll stick with Vista for quite a while...

[bdpreece]

Just upgraded the wifes Toshiba from Vista home premium to Windows 7. The first part of the install checks compatibility for all your software and gives you the option to quit if you don't want to upgrade. With the Toshiba it also loads a toshiba adviser program. On mine at least it required I be hooked to the internet for the first part of the installation then I disconnected for the rest. Allow lots of time I went to bed about 3 hours into the install and just left the laptop on then finished in the morning. The instructions say allow up to 6 hours but I suspect it took about 3.5 for ours. There will be several reboots and at least once I got lost so I started over and it just flew through the parts I had already done and picked up where it found things not complete.