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Vista Upgrades Require Presence of Old OS
kapaopango writes "Ars Technica is reporting that upgrade versions of Windows Vista Home Basic, Premium, and Starter Edition cannot be installed on a PC unless Windows XP or Windows 2000 is already installed. This is a change from previous versions of Windows, which only required a valid license key. This change has the potential to make disaster recovery very tedious. The article says: 'For its part, Microsoft seems to be confident that the Vista repair process should be sufficient to solve any problems with the OS, since otherwise the only option for disaster recovery in the absence of backups would be to wipe a machine, install XP, and then upgrade to Vista. This will certainly make disaster recovery a more irritating experience.'"
Out of morbid curiosity I decided to install XP, worked like a charm. I then put in the Vista CD, and it booted and installed a fresh copy of Vista without problem. (Complete overwrite, not upgrade).
So, from my experience, Vista won't even install on a totally fresh hard drive.
A co-worker had a very similar experience, but had to go with installing XP, then upgrading - which leaves you with some decidedly annoying problems with the admin controls.
Overall Vista isn't as bad to work with as some stories would lead me to believe, but there are definitely days where it's easy to see it is not fit for prime-time.
95 did this too. But, it only checked for one file, and by name. The answer was to create a zero-length file names whatever.dll and put it on a floppy.
Have you read my journal today?
and said make a ghost image like everybody else....
I'm not sure if it's ghost or another norton product, but there is one where norton thought it was a good idea to change the partition ID to refelect the fact that it employed some form of nortons crap. That sounds logical, and well and good, except for the fact that after blowing a motherboard, it was not possible to mount the drive in windows, it wouldn't see it. You "could" mount it under linux easily enough, it was a perfectly valid NTFS partition. Partition magic wouldn't touch it which is now owned by Symantec, paragon wouldn't touch it, nothing would. And it's not like i'd tweek with the paramaters until such time as I got the drive backed up.
Symantec has some good utilities, but unforunatly many of them are bug ridden pieces of filth, and none of the utilities they buy the rights to and sell seem to be aware of each other, which is the apex of stupid when you have one product using it's own unique partition ID number and nothing else in the Nortons sphere that deals with the drive on this level understands this idiot approach.
Paragon backup seems to do the trick, without alot of bullshit. I wouldn't touch nortons ghost.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
The newly supplied "backup" utility is incompatible with the .bkf file format, which goes back to 1993, and worse yet - it cannot operate in Safe Mode. Many times when trying to restore an inoperable system, Safe Mode is the only available way to access the system!
Vista - a glossy step backwards.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
It's available, but you don't get it unless you ask for it, when you place your volume license order.
-ted
Microsoft confirms this behavior:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930985/en-us
To resolve this problem, use one of the following methods.
Method 1
Upgrade to Windows Vista from an earlier, supported version of Windows that is already installed on the computer.
Method 2
Purchase a license that lets you perform a clean installation of Windows Vista.
I've already had to reinstall due to an error on my part where a program caused Vista to eat itself.
I had to install XP, upgrade a handful of things, then reinstall Vista. HUGE pain in the ass.
2000, 2003 and XP only require that a qualifying version of a CD of their OS be inserted in the drive during the install. I don't know of any that required the who OS be installed in the first place before upgrading. Definately a PITA.
BitLocker, for one. I know my company is about to spend a whole WAD of cash for an FDE solution that has several gaping security holes - having something integrated into the OS (which we get for free because of our licensing agreement) would save everyone a lot of money and headaches.
Format is a repair process, commonly used after ZAPing your hard drive's MBR and boot sectors, so everything gets back to working order. Sometimes that MBR and stuff refuses to fucking clear, and ZAP+format *USUALLY* fixes the problem. Either that, or go the more expensive route and just buy a new harddrive (you'd be surprised how many people do that for their laptops when the Geek Squad can't figure it out. Only those adamant customers that stick with the tried and true repair depot get their warranty reward.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I did the 'upgrade' yesterday.
Yes I was annoyed that the upgrade would not install on a 'clean' system.
So I had to install a copy of XP. I didn't authenticate it.
Then I started the upgrade from within XP and chose 'Overwrite existing system'
About an hour later and several (3+ I think) reboots I have a Vista System running.
M$ Could have done this better by not only asking for the original CD Media for XP but also the Key for that version of the OS.
Then you would not have to waste an hour with the XP Install before totally obliterating the newly installed XP.
Now I usually use Server running Windows Server 2003 which use "Windows Classic" by default. My XP System is also configured to use Classic. I tried the same with Vista.
I always put an Explorer and DOS icons on the desktop.
Vista let me put the DOS on no problem. But, would it let me do the same with explorer? Fat chance.
(Start->Programs->Accessories->Windows Explorer, Right Click->Send to Desktop)
The Right Click on "Windows Explorer" just closed the Start->Programs...
It is as if M$ have deliberately disable this functionality.
Vista, Not fit for Service.
Classic is Broken or is this a deliberate ploy by M$?
The system now runs Fedora Core 6.
Vista is there as a boot option but really M$, your boot editor is pure Cr*P. Was the UI designed by a 6 year old. Please do something aqbout it pronto. Why oh Why is this needed?
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
I bought a computer 2 months before XP came out. It had ME on it, but came with a coupon for the upgrade, which I got and installed. Later, when the hard drive died, I bought a new hard drive and had to install ME, then do the upgrade to XP again.
This is nothing new.
To be fair to Microsoft, my OS X 10.3 Upgrade disks required 10.2 to be installed before running. When I did a wipe-reinstall, I had to first install 10.2 with the system recovery disk that came with the machine, then do an erase-and-upgrade to get a clean 10.3 system.
To be fair to Apple, the 10.3 upgrade only cost £15 ($20 for people in the USA), which is a little bit less than Vista.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You mean Direct X 10, right?
Because Direct X 9.0c already exists for Win2000 and XP. Direct X 10 promises more beautiful graphics, but it will take a long time before the majority of games is Direct X 10 only.
C - the footgun of programming languages
This is simply untrue. Check http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsv ista/features/details/backup.mspx
Some versions of Vista do not allow for AUTOMATED backup, but the backup utility, including the ability to make system image files, is present in all editions.
Recovery is straightfoward. Make an image file (you can even span optical media in writing it). If your hard disk does the firework, you boot off your upgrade disk, select Repair and then select Full Recovery. You then provide the media holding your image and the whole thing is restored to the point when you took the image.
It is also possible to recover to a particular restore point off the upgrade media (if your hard disk hasn't done the firework)
This isn't new. I have a Win95 upgrade CD that requires Win3.1 or equivalent Microsoft product already on the HD to install. It was just as ridiculous back then too.
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
I had to walk a friend on dial-up through this once over the phone. He had a liveCD but his internet was too slow to even think about doing a dist-upgrade. He's still up and hasn't had problems. It isn't the easiest thing to do, but it works, and I dare say updating Windows isn't that easy either.
This might be a helpful starting point. It's what got me started using Linux.
Ubuntu Music Project: OSS for music tech geeks