Upgrading from XP Home to Windows 7/Vista WITHOUT loosing installed programs & settings etc

[LX555]

Hi, I would like to upgrade from a copy of Win XP to Windows 7 Ultimate (Both 32 Bit) - However as i understand it you cannot upgrade directly without doing a clean install unless you go via windows vista to do this.

Therefore, I have initially upgraded My XP system to Vista Enterprise SP2 (still 32 bit) from running the install CD from WITHIN XP rather than from boot, however none of my programs or settings have been transferred and it is therefore effectively just a clean install! Therefore defeating the whole purpose of having installed vista!

Luckily it was just a test and i have a backup of XP I can restore and try again from. So how can i upgrade from XP to Vista and keep programs and settings intact?

Do i need to select a special option or go through an unorthadox procedure? Or do i need to use a separate "Upgrade" version of Vista which is different to a clean install version? Or can you only upgrade with certain editions of Vista (I tried with the Enterprise version as i said). Also files are not an issue as they are stored on different Drives/Partitions. Also just to add, the version of XP i tried upgrading from initially is an unactivated OEM copy of XP Home SP2, but the main OS i want to upgrade from is XP Pro SP3. Could the version of XP i'm trying to upgrade from be a factor?

Help and suggestions much appreciated

Thanks

 

[KSoD]

You will need the Upgrade media. The retial disks that are full versions cant perform the upgrade. You will not be able to upgrade to Enterprise.

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows Vista

I would carefully research this before taking it on. Just cause you dont want to lose your programs and such doesnt mean it wont happen. You may not have Vista compatible software installed or software that conflicts with the upgrade process. Then to go from Vista to Win7 you are going to come across the same thing. Not all apps that work in XP work in Vista/Win7. You should run the Win7 upgrade advisor to make sure that you dont have any conflicts. Cause if you do, then nothing you try will succeed.

 

[LX555]

Thanks, which versions of Vista can you upgrade to if not the Enterprise version?

Also, i have many programs which is why I was determined not to reinstall from scratch. I guessed a few of them would inevitably not work after upgrade but just figured i'd reinstall the problematic ones after upgrade. But are you saying just 1 program that isn't compatible, could likely corrupt the whole upgrade process?

Thanks

 

[KSoD]

Check the link. It gives you all of the upgrade possibilities. That is why i posted it.

What i am saying is that any program that isnt compatible that is installed during the upgrade process has the potential to screw everything up. I have seen it with iTunes hundreds of times. Along with that, there is no saying that the few that dont work can be reinstalled just that easily. Not all programs are compatible with Win7 at this time. Even less are compatible with Vista. So who is to say that the programs you use are even compatible and can be upgraded in the first place? This isnt the type of situation to just "see how it goes and hope for the best". That is only asking for trouble and a machine that presents nothing but problems for you. Forcing you to stop by the site time and time again asking why things are happening to you for no reason.

 

[LX555]

I see, thanks for the info.

It seems to me this whole thing is just part of a long term wider problem in the industry as a whole. The whole concept and idea that you spend years tweaking and perfecting ur system collecting programs etc etc, (which all have their associated data which is often very hard to restore if reinstalling (i.e browser history and associated data and a whole host of other things related to other programs), and then for all that to just be wiped out and having to start from scratch every few years or so for an OS upgrade, 32 to 64 bit upgrade or for whatever new concept other reason comes along, just seems to me to be an unsustainable, impractical, and unsatisfactory way to carry on over the coming years and decades.

Any solutions to these problems (if they exist) seem hard to find out about and are very poorly publicised meaning people like me have to spend endless precious time researching and finding ways around it, the solutions to which may in turn cause a whole host of other seemingly endless problems, and unforseen consequences. I feel like the industry needs to get it's act together and come up with a serious long term solution to this kind of thing. I don't particularly feel comfortable with the trend of storing things online instead either as a possible solution somehow, as this takes the ultimate power and control away from the user, and often firmly in the hands of the corporate giants. This data could be wiped out at will based on a corporate profit decision or upgrade (e.g the recent upgrade of windows live calender meaning everyones entries in the previous version were deleted!) - There needs to be a solution to this sooner rather than later! But what is to be done?

 

[KSoD]

Well as for browsers, no. There are so many ways to export and then import you browser settings as they are now. IE has the ability, Firefox has Sync, Chrome has Sync, Opera has Sync. So in reality only IE is the one that you have any actual backing up to do as the rest you just create an account and the rest is done automatically.

There is nothing wrong at all with the industry. No one is forcing you to upgrade. It is your choice. You know the consequences of doing so. How is it the industries fault that stuff that worked on an OS from 10 years ago doesnt work on an OS made last year? It is called progress. It happens every where. You dont see car builders using the Chevy Big Block engine in the Hybrid cars of today do you? No. That was a tool of the past and they had to adapt to todays world. Just like the OS and the PC industry as a whole has had to do.

I can flat out tell you that I dont want, need or care to carry over my things from when i was on XP. I was much younger and dumber then. I did so much that caused more harm than good without even knowing as much. I am now older and wiser and i learned to work with the OS more than trying to force it to do what i thought it should. Not to mention the fact that Win7 has more options built into than were even possible or dreamed of with XP.

The industry doesnt care about keeping settings or programs from a decade ago working on todays stuff. That is NOT Microsoft's problem. That is the problem of the developers. They were spoiled with XP cause there was not another OS release for 6 years. They let the updates slide and thought that their stuff would last forever. Then Vista came out and they never bothered updating their stuff. That is on them. Dont go blaming Microsoft for something that the creators of the programs are at fault for. Which is exactly what your doing. You think Microsoft is at fault cause they didnt make Win7 backward compatible. But the truth is that technology and that coding is so old it isnt right for today's world. They had to drop it to make improvements. You cant have progress without some sacrifice. Just like you dont see the car manufacturer's use Chevy Big Blocks in today's Hybrid car's.

Blame the developers for taking so long to not update their product. Blame them cause they are the ones that dont want to have Win7 support. Blame them for releasing an updated version that you cant drag your settings over from or providing a way to do so. As i shown in my first sentence, it can be done by the developer and it is to be done by them. It is not on Microsoft to be responsible for every program created in the world. They just provide the platform it runs on. You are placing the blame squarely on the wrong thing.

 

[LX555]

You say it is peoples choice about whether they upgrade, but I think that is subjective. For example, if you need a partition size over 2TB, then surely you have no choice but to upgrade as XP won't support it.

If you want to use half of the websites on the internet, you have no choice but to install programs like flash and java as much as you may dislike them as the alternative is even worse and doing half the things you need to online would become almost impossible. So, although not technically, you could argue you are effectively forced into it as the alternatives are even more unacceptable in the same way you are forced in to following the law as although you technically could chose not to, the consequences of not dong so are also often even more unacceptable.

I am not squaring the blame solely on Microsoft either but, if they had put their minds and more time into it and gave more regard to their customers than their profits, I believe they could have found a solution, to allow people to upgrade straight from XP to Windows 7 for example, without comprimising on progress, and made peoples lives a lot easier. If it is already possible to upgrade from XP to 7 via a process (i.e vista), then surely they could have made it technically possible to upgrade directly without having to actually get vista aswell. And even if this wasnt true, or they weren't prepared to do it, how about apologising and offering an explanation to people seen as XP direct to Win 7 is likely to be such a hugely demanded upgrade choice/route given the widely considered dissapointment of Vista. No wonder so many professionals seem to be sticking with XP.

 

[KSoD]

So why get a partition over 2TB if you know that is a limit? Why not just split it up into 1 separate 1TB Drives which it does support? You get the same results, just in a different fashion. No one says you have to have a 2TB hard drive, that is personal choice.

As is installing Flash, Java and all of that. I triple boot with Win7, Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS. When in Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS i get to view the web just the way i want and i dont have the option to install Adobe Flash or Java. But yet they have found a way to make it work by creating open source versions that you can use.

Microsoft was thinking of the customer when they built Win7. As i previously stated, the code that is in XP is a decade old, if not older since XP was in its Beta stages and some of the coding was carried over from previous OS's. Most of which is full of holes which is why XP to date is still the most patched OS out of any, including open source. XP SP3 had over 1,000 updates alone. The coding wouldnt work, they had to change it in order to be able to get such things as your 2TB Drive. Previously unsupported but the code had to be changed in order to support it. Just as the code had to change to support files larger than 4GB since FAT32 didnt support those. Which is when they came up with NTFS. Bringing wider support for larger file sizes and bringing more security to the file system.

You are only focusing on this aspect cause of the fact that you cant do a direct upgrade and feel slighted that what you want to do, you cant. You dont seem to understand that Vista had 6 Million lines of code in it. Win7 has more than that.

As for your remark about professionals sticking to XP, you have not seen the news recently which says that over 60% of business had plans to switch to Win7 before the end of 2010, the number is estimated to be greater in 2011. So if they are sticking with XP then why is it more than half are already switched with more looking to switch over this year?

Microsoft could have made Win7 update from XP. But they are trying to phase out XP. Just as you cant upgrade Ubuntu directly from version 7.04 to the latest 10.10, you cant upgrade from a decade old OS to the newest one. It is done in every business all over the world. Why do car companies charge you so much more to get replacement parts on cars that are a decade old compared to cars that are this years models? Cause they are not making any money and it is not good for the economy and the environment to do so. They want people on the newest cars cause they dont emit as much toxins into the air. So they try to push people to the newest cars to help the planet. Is that wrong of them to do? Of course not. I dont want my child having the planet destroyed. Just as no one should.

Why should Microsoft apologize for being a business? You dont see Walmart, Best Buy, Target, NewEgg, Tiger Direct, Amazon, Apple, Dell, HP, Acer, Toshiba or any other company apologize when they raise their prices or stop support for a product or service that they previously carried. What is the point of being in business if you dont make some kind of money out of it? That is bad business. Plus if you actually paid attention, you would see that Microsoft's main income is not from Windows, but from the Office product line. They make more money off of Microsoft Office than they do off of any copy of Windows sold. Just some food for thought. If Microsoft was truly in it for the money, they could easily charge more for their product to get a larger margin of profit.

So as i stated previously, it is personal choice. Cause you are not forced to upgrade Windows. In fact your not even forced to use Windows at all. there are so many free alternatives out there that you could use and not ever have to worry about the upgrade process for Windows ever again. You choose to use Windows, you choose when you upgrade, you choose what programs you install. You could easily choose something else.

So about the topic at hand. Has your question been answered? Cause if so then the topic can be closed. This is not the place to have such a discussion about such matters. It is a personal opinion and debating about whose opinion is right or wrong will not lead to anything but animosity among those involved.

 

[LX555]

Hi,

Yes my question has been answered thanks, so the thread can be closed if you wish.

Although, I have plenty of responses to make to your last thread and explanations questions etc. I see it as an interesting debate rather than something negative to create animosity. A chance to learn and understand why other people have the views they do to gain greater understanding which i see as a positive thing and i would hope others involved in the debate would see it that way too. I still think many debates like this can be whittled down further and further before you reach a fundamental difference of opinion which i dont think we've reached yet. I see that as a positive oppurtunity.

Just my view, however as you said this thread isn't the best place. Is there an area designated for more general positive and constructive discussion on things like this where we could perhaps continue the debate? Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly anyway, even if we are still on crossed wires to a large extent!

 

[KSoD]

There is no place for a new member such as yourself to debate such things. When you reach 40 posts and become recognized as an active member of the community you can go to the Off Topic area and discuss it there.

Topic Closed.