Vista Upgrade Matrix

Tyler Too writes "With six different versions of Vista due once it ships, figuring out an upgrade path can be confusing. Microsoft has tried to clear things up with a 4x6 matrix laying out your options. 'In short, users of XP Home can do an upgrade install to any of the four Vista versions. However, XP Pro users can only perform upgrade installs to Business or Ultimate.' And if you're not running a 32-bit version Windows XP, there's no upgrade path for you at all."

Comments

Some slight FUD in the summary...

[metasecure]

Some slight FUD in the summary, specifically the line that reads "And if you're not running a 32-bit version Windows XP, there's no upgrade path for you at all."

From TFA: "Note that the requirement for clean installs does not mean that the user is required to purchase a full version of the operating system. XP Pro, XP Pro x64 and Windows 2000 users will still be able to purchase the "upgrade edition" of any version of Vista. They just won't be able to upgrade with their existing files and settings in place."

Of course, personally I would reccomend doing a clean install no matter what version of Windows you currently have, so for me this is a moot point.

P.S. I thought timothy was assigned to Backslash articles! Why is he posting new news (twice today and we've had no backslashes!)? Hopefully he'll be able to summarize the interesting commentary that will no doubt ensue in an upcoming Backslash.

Re:Some slight FUD in the summary...

[MooseMuffin]

While I agree with the parent in that you would be foolish not to do a clean install, it does seem backwards that someone who paid more for XP pro has to lose all their files while XP home users do not. It doesn't sound like a technical limitation at all.

Re:Some slight FUD in the summary...

[jawtheshark]

it does seem backwards that someone who paid more for XP pro has to lose all their files while XP home users do not.

Perhaps because a Pro user would know what "backup" means? Home users are at the low end of the food chain, you don't expect anything of them. A Pro user knows that an upgrade is a bad thing and will upgrade and reinstall clean.

I've never seen an "Upgrade" of a Windows system go "cleanly". The only way to be sure is to install from scratch, or go Linux ;-)

Re:Some slight FUD in the summary...

[VertigoAce]

If you do a clean install of Vista, all of your old programs and documents will be in c:\windows.old (or c:\windows.old.000, etc, if you do another clean install of Vista on top of itself). That directory will have your old Documents and Settings, Program Files, and Windows directories.

If your programs don't require anything outside of their program directory, they'll run just fine from windows.old. So even if you choose to do something strange like Pro -> Home, you could always copy things back and run setup.exe for each program again (choosing repair and let the installer fix registry settings, etc).

Matrix, eh?

[CRCulver]

There is only one person who can save us from Vista: Neo.

Re:Matrix, eh?

[smaerd]

Do not try to install the new file system. That is impossible. Only try to understand the truth.
What's the truth?
There is no new file system.

Unless

[0racle]

Unless I can upgrade my XP Pro to an Ultimate Xtreem OMG edition I don't care.

I am accursed of god (or microsoft)

[way2trivial]

I thought it would be NEAT to put XP64 on my newest workstation

I have since decided it was a mistake

I was sOOOOoo looking forward to escaping this bastardized ostracized (did I mention I also owned a ME laptop at onew point) dark stepchild OS of microsofts by upping it to vista...

now apparently, I can't even do that

Re:I am accursed of god (or microsoft)

[isaacklinger]

XP Pro, XP Pro x64 and Windows 2000 users will still be able to purchase the "upgrade edition" of any version of Vista. They just won't be able to upgrade with their existing files and settings in place.

If they can't keep their files and settings, in what sense is it an upgrade? Price?

Upgrade Matrix Is Flawed

[Doomedsnowball]

I see they "conveniently" left out the boxes where you upgrade to linux instead.

More Money for us!

[Kranfer]

This Matrix also seems to say that if you spent the extra money in the past for the professional software you MUST pay more again in the future. I don't like that.

Re:More Money for us!

[Keith Russell]

RTFA after the chart. You can still pay the upgrade price for a "downgraded" version of Vista. You just won't get the option to upgrade in-place, and will be forced to make a clean install.

No great loss, if you ask me. (Which you didn't, but this is Slashdot.) In my experience, clean installs just work better, and the time you spend post-install is a sunk cost. You're either re-installing and transferring things to the clean install, or fixing what got broke by the in-place upgrade. Just choose the option that's better for your blood pressure.

Re:Can't find my version

[PygmySurfer]

Windows Vista Ultimate 0-Day

Re:What???

[WilliamSChips]

If you have Gentoo, going to Vista would be a downgrade.

Okay ... but what's the difference?

[powerlord]

Okay, I'm a geek and work in technology. I run WinXP Pro since I have a Domain at home (Samba 3), and it lets me play games and do work (yes, I also have another 2 machines runing Linux, and an OS X machine, its your typical 'mixed' development environment).

I see that they I can buy any upgrade copy and do a clean install (and if I upgraded I would go this route regardless), but has MS published anywhere what the differences between the different 'products' (and I use the term loosely), are?

With XP Home/Pro there were obvious descriptions of what parts were missing/added (depending on your point of view).

I haven't seen that (or don't remember seeing that), for the various flavours of Vista yet.

Re:Okay ... but what's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't quite a chart of the different versions, but it's got the information:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/edi tions/default.mspx

Re:Okay ... but what's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't look very hard. A quick search on Paul Thurrott's website gave me this, published in March.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_edit ions_final.asp

Obligatory

[squizzz]

Does it have something to do with this?

Re:What???

[$RANDOMLUSER]

No Gentoo upgrade path? :-)

Sure. Try:
emerge PureEvil

déjà vu

[neonprimetime]

Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.
[Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
Trinity: What did you just say?
Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
Trinity: What did you see?
Cypher: What happened?
Neo: I had this operating system, and then another that looked just like it.
Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same OS?
Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
Neo: What is it?
Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
Neo: What did they change?
Trinity: More OS versions.

Re:déjà vu

[x2A]

Oh my god, the Windows!!! They're locking us in!

Re:What???

[Pulse_Instance]

I just upgraded my PCs at home from XP to Gentoo, no way am I downgrading to Vista.

Re:Smash my Vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, will be camping out at the Pirate Bay a week before it is released to get my copy.

Heh...

[teflaime]

I'm not upgrading to Vista until World of Warcraft REQUIRES it.

Thanks

[CtrlPhreak]

Now I know when I goto pirate the new latest version of windows I know which version to download to upgrade my XP Pro installation, Vista Ultimate. Yeah nothing to see here.

Re:What???

[eosp]

Mods, it's insightful, not funny.

not a technical reason

[will_die]

Looking at the chart seems to indicate that it is not a technical reason for some of the in-place upgades.
XP MC is XP Pro, with some features such as domain join turned off, and with a a pre-loader for the large screen and some visual changes, and then the MSC sofware added on. If you go and install MSE the first that that is installed is a regular version of XP Pro. If you have software that installs on pro but not home it will install on MCE, if the turned off features are not needed.
So for all purposes MCE is XP pro with marketing for the home.
However in the table MCE is in-place upgradable to home premium and ultimate and XP Pro is upgradeable to business and ultimate.
So based on all above there is no reason XP Pro could not be in-place upgraded in Home Premium and MCE to business, the only reason would be that users would loose capabilties that thier previous versions had if they went that route.

HD space.

[marcovje]

I ran the check tool from microsoft, and the machine passed all test except for the HD test.

It seems it requires all required space to be already _free_ on the machine (so that increases the requirement with the size of your current installation), and on the primary partition.