Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional?

Question

I currently have Vista Home Premium 32bit, and my school is offering me the final version of Windows 7 Professional in either 32bit or 64bit, my choice, for free download. If I install 7, can I upgrade without losing all my files, applications, etc? Also, the file to be downloaded is 2.2GB. Do I need to find a flash drive big enough to hold it and boot my PC from the drive in order to upgrade?

Also, windows update keeps failing to install some updates. Will that affect windows 7 installation?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You will have to burn the 2.2gb file to a dvd disk, and boot from that.



And as long as its a Windows 7 upgrade then you will be able to, but it would have to be the same bit, and in ur case the 32bit one.



Otherwise no, but if you, during install tell it not to format the drive it will put all your old files into a windows.old folder, the programs and etc would have to be reinstalled though.

Answer 2

If you upgrade you WILL lose all of your programs & files (virtually the same as a reload except you are upgrading).

If you have a external hard drive or a big USB stick you might want to back up your programs and files and stuff before you upgrade. Although some of your vista programs might not run on a win 7 so you might wanna double check that too.



On the question on if you should upgrade or not, I'd say go for it. I have Windows Vista Business (supplied by school) and its REALLY frustrating. The layout and everything is nice, but on the whole i think its a dud.



My windows update fails all the time too lol :D

as for the flash drive thing your tech center will probably do it for you (if you have a tech center), so no need to worry. If your DIY then i cant help you there sorry

Answer 3

1) You'll need to burn it to a DVD.



2) Make sure the school is legally authorized to offer it to you. Some school officials seem to think that if they buy a site license it's legal to give it to students - it's not, and YOU could get sued (your parents would end up as the defendants and the judgment could be huge).



3) Be aware that, as restrictive as Vista is, 7 is much more restrictive. Many of the the things you could do on XP, you can't do on Vista. Many of the things you can do on Vista, you can't do on 7.



If updates fail, you may have hardware or driver problems. They'd cause 7 to dail too.

Answer 4

Should be able to upgrade.



But no matter what. When doing things like this, ALWAYS BACKUP if unsure of what your doing. Make copes...Can never backup enough :)



However, if you have all your Drivers, Programs, games that you can easy reinstall. Do a Fresh install of Windows 7.

as if you want to go back to vista, you should do this anyway.



I do my fresh install as follows: http://troubleshootit.moonfruit.com/#/to-install/4535164734