I was using Windows XP Media Center - which I thought originally was a crock, but I have to admit I love the ability to record TV progs on my PC and the like - but I wanted to upgrade to Windows Vista. I purchased the Vista Premium upgrade from Academic Superstores (it pays to have kids in school) for $70.
I didn't really want to perform an upgrade upgrade because I don't believe that ever goes as well as a clean install. Plus, my XP came on the computer from the store, which means that HP put oodles of crap on it that I didn't ask for and didn't want (Netscape, aol, msn, earthlink - name something it was [unmentionable] on there).
At the DailyTech there is a work around for this here. This was a way to let me wipe out the HDD partition, format and install from scratch. The way Vista works is, if you have an upgrade key, you must run the setup from within a version of Windows that is upgradeable to Vista - these are Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP or Windows Vista only. That means, if you are still running Windows 98, or Me or NT I think you might be out of luck. But the work-around seems to negate that anyway, you don't even need a disc or your old Windows key to prove you had one of the versions of Windows in Vista's upgrade path.
The work-a-round is such.
1) back up all your stuff because you are going to lose it
2) boot from the DVD
3) do NOT put in your Windows Vista key when prompted
4) do the install
5) after it is all installed, pop the DVD back in
6) upgrade your Windows Vista Premium to...Windows Vista Premium - enter the Windows Vista key when prompted
The initial install took about 30 minutes to perform, including deleting the drive partition, making a new partition and formatting that partition.
The upgrade though, sheesh it took close to an hour to upgrade a clean install of Vista Premium to Vista Premium. One would think the install would have compared files and said "nothing to do here" but I believe it backed up the original file system, then installed the new file system, then removed the back ups.
My laptop came with two hard drives. I moved quite a bit of things (photos, videos, music, documents etc) to the D drive for safe keeping while I installed Vista. When installing Vista, I gave my laptop a new name - this may have been a mistake, let me explain. As stated, I moved stuff to the second HDD for the install. Well, when I opened up the drive in Vista, I couldn't see jack. I could not interact with anything, I had absolutely zero permissions on that drive.
This is the second day messing around with it, but still having some problems viewing/executing files.
Anyway, I'll figure it out eventually (hopefully it will not require giving 'everyone' full control of everything).
Other than that, things went fairly smooth. The only thing that did not work right out of the box (so to speak) was the audio. Actually, the sound worked, it was the sound controls that did not work. I could mute the speakers and I could un-mute the speakers, but I could not adjust the volume. After a lengthy perusal of the HP website and other places out in the web-o-sphere I resigned to downloading the XP version of the audio drivers from HP and go with that (at least until HP gets off their kiester and gives me my drivers).
Technorati Tags: XP Media Center, Vista Premium, Upgrade
I didn't really want to perform an upgrade upgrade because I don't believe that ever goes as well as a clean install. Plus, my XP came on the computer from the store, which means that HP put oodles of crap on it that I didn't ask for and didn't want (Netscape, aol, msn, earthlink - name something it was [unmentionable] on there).
At the DailyTech there is a work around for this here. This was a way to let me wipe out the HDD partition, format and install from scratch. The way Vista works is, if you have an upgrade key, you must run the setup from within a version of Windows that is upgradeable to Vista - these are Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP or Windows Vista only. That means, if you are still running Windows 98, or Me or NT I think you might be out of luck. But the work-around seems to negate that anyway, you don't even need a disc or your old Windows key to prove you had one of the versions of Windows in Vista's upgrade path.
The work-a-round is such.
1) back up all your stuff because you are going to lose it
2) boot from the DVD
3) do NOT put in your Windows Vista key when prompted
4) do the install
5) after it is all installed, pop the DVD back in
6) upgrade your Windows Vista Premium to...Windows Vista Premium - enter the Windows Vista key when prompted
The initial install took about 30 minutes to perform, including deleting the drive partition, making a new partition and formatting that partition.
The upgrade though, sheesh it took close to an hour to upgrade a clean install of Vista Premium to Vista Premium. One would think the install would have compared files and said "nothing to do here" but I believe it backed up the original file system, then installed the new file system, then removed the back ups.
My laptop came with two hard drives. I moved quite a bit of things (photos, videos, music, documents etc) to the D drive for safe keeping while I installed Vista. When installing Vista, I gave my laptop a new name - this may have been a mistake, let me explain. As stated, I moved stuff to the second HDD for the install. Well, when I opened up the drive in Vista, I couldn't see jack. I could not interact with anything, I had absolutely zero permissions on that drive.
This is the second day messing around with it, but still having some problems viewing/executing files.
Anyway, I'll figure it out eventually (hopefully it will not require giving 'everyone' full control of everything).
Other than that, things went fairly smooth. The only thing that did not work right out of the box (so to speak) was the audio. Actually, the sound worked, it was the sound controls that did not work. I could mute the speakers and I could un-mute the speakers, but I could not adjust the volume. After a lengthy perusal of the HP website and other places out in the web-o-sphere I resigned to downloading the XP version of the audio drivers from HP and go with that (at least until HP gets off their kiester and gives me my drivers).
Technorati Tags: XP Media Center, Vista Premium, Upgrade
