Vista upgrade...to what?

crunchman

It's more about being reluctant to disturb sectors on an ancient hard drive and risk breaking something.

Phil_aka_Pip

crunchman said:

It's more about being reluctant to disturb sectors on an ancient hard drive and risk breaking something.

You never know what might be lurking on an ancient hard drive. Don't disturb the Balrog ...

spark240

Myranda said:

You can *just* upgrade with an upgrade disk. Though if the laptop is old (and with Vista it's fairly old) google the model number and try and find the drivers for things like the wireless, camera and motherboard in win7 versions... my laptop camera doesn't work in Windows7 and the USB2.0 sockets only think they're USB1 in windows7 as there are no drivers for some parts....

Windows7 will be slightly faster (and a re-install always rejuvenates nicely anyway)... and will look familiar enough that it shouldn't be too jarring

Ok , so its a desktop machine, an All in one Vaio

Vista SP2 

Intel Core 2 Duo 32Ghz

4m Ram

32b OS

So is the upgrade disc the best way to go?

Fazer

whats the best/cheapest way to get the vista>win 7 upgrade?
on an oldish dell desktop, 32bit

johnnyurq

spark240 said:

Myranda said:

You can *just* upgrade with an upgrade disk. Though if the laptop is old (and with Vista it's fairly old) google the model number and try and find the drivers for things like the wireless, camera and motherboard in win7 versions... my laptop camera doesn't work in Windows7 and the USB2.0 sockets only think they're USB1 in windows7 as there are no drivers for some parts....

Windows7 will be slightly faster (and a re-install always rejuvenates nicely anyway)... and will look familiar enough that it shouldn't be too jarring

Ok , so its a desktop machine, an All in one Vaio

Vista SP2 

Intel Core 2 Duo 32Ghz

4m Ram

32b OS

So is the upgrade disc the best way to go?

Yes and no.

Yes because you don't have to do a full reinstall and theoretically it is less hassle for an end user.

No because in practice Vista to Win7 upgrades can be fraught with problems like it taking ages and still failing due to some programs compatibility problems or hardware driver issues. 

On the whole it goes OK more often than not but in my experience enough times to make a fresh install of Win7 a better prospect in the long run.

The real win for a fresh install is no legacy nonsense as mentioned and it gives a better chance to get the full horsepower from the Laptop/PC.

Whatever you decide it would be prudent to back up all your important stuff and download any Win7 drivers for your Laptop/PC in preparation from the vendors/hardware manufacturers websites.

As you are backing up all your shizzle you just in case you are a long way down the road to being better and/or quicker doing a fresh install.

But upgrading for non technical can be slightly less painful with the caveat of backing up just in case it goes awry.

sweepy

stickyfiddle said:

7 was/is excellent. 8 is so horrible I bought a Mac instead.

Another convert to the cause , well done that chap

Sambostar

Axe_meister said:

 

I'm running windows 8.1 here 64bit. I have no problem what-so-ever running 32bit software, in fact my old photoshop 32bit software can now see 4GB of memory rather than the 3GB which was the max when running 32bit OS.

It is stable as hell. I hardly use the new interface running in desktop mode full time (I like my icons on the desktop or in the task bar).

 

How do you do that then?  I have dreamweaver CS3, photoshop 7.0 and AutoCAD 2002 which are all pretty old.