When moving from XP to Vista, will I have to reformat my storage drive, or is the file system similar enough that everything on the drive will continue to work just fine? Also, if I back up my Outlook Express e-mail from XP, will I be able to load it on Vista or is that done differently? Will most all software that I currently have run fine on 32-bit Vista?
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Moving from XP to Vista questions...
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dbwillis
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When moving from XP to Vista, will I have to reformat my storage drive, or is the file system similar enough that everything on the drive will continue to work just fine?
---the drive should be fine as is.
Also, if I back up my Outlook Express e-mail from XP, will I be able to load it on Vista or is that done differently?
---Im not sure baout importing emails from OE into Vista mail..
Will most all software that I currently have run fine on 32-bit Vista?
--can you provide a list of software?
---the drive should be fine as is.
Also, if I back up my Outlook Express e-mail from XP, will I be able to load it on Vista or is that done differently?
---Im not sure baout importing emails from OE into Vista mail..
Will most all software that I currently have run fine on 32-bit Vista?
--can you provide a list of software?
As for Outlook, if you keep copies of your email on your email server (e.g; your internet provider) it will just redownload itself in your new installation of Outlook.
Just go through the options and find that setting that ask you if you wish to store a copy of your emails on the server, and make sure you don't check "delete on server when deleted locally" or something like that.
Just go through the options and find that setting that ask you if you wish to store a copy of your emails on the server, and make sure you don't check "delete on server when deleted locally" or something like that.
Vista (unlike all other versions of Windows) totally wipes your XP files.
It saves all your items such as programs, settings, and documents, but the operating system itself is not "upgraded" as in the past, but is installed new. The whole notion of a "fresh install" really doesn't apply much anymore, unless you are just someone who wants to start new to get rid of extra documents you don't really need.
Most people set it up to download straight to their Inbox as their ISP instructs... No "save a copy" done.
Even if the OP were to want to do this, that does not answer the question about any past emails before the setting was applied.
Windows Mail is essentially Outlook Express, so I would *assume* it transferrs easily... I have personally never done an upgrade using the "lite" versions (I've always used Outlook), so I can't tell you from firsthand...
What I would suggest, if this is a big, major important area, is to make a backup of your data in the Outlook: either export the data you want to a file, or just make a copy of the whole PST file.
At any rate the whole system SHOULD be backed up in case a power outage or something rips through the town in the middle of the upgrade...
It saves all your items such as programs, settings, and documents, but the operating system itself is not "upgraded" as in the past, but is installed new. The whole notion of a "fresh install" really doesn't apply much anymore, unless you are just someone who wants to start new to get rid of extra documents you don't really need.
Now, how many people do you really think save copies of email on their server? Honestly...
Most people set it up to download straight to their Inbox as their ISP instructs... No "save a copy" done.
Even if the OP were to want to do this, that does not answer the question about any past emails before the setting was applied.
Windows Mail is essentially Outlook Express, so I would *assume* it transferrs easily... I have personally never done an upgrade using the "lite" versions (I've always used Outlook), so I can't tell you from firsthand...
What I would suggest, if this is a big, major important area, is to make a backup of your data in the Outlook: either export the data you want to a file, or just make a copy of the whole PST file.
At any rate the whole system SHOULD be backed up in case a power outage or something rips through the town in the middle of the upgrade...
Nevertheless, it's one option set on the table. Even if he didn't save copies on the server, at least now he knows about that option if he didn't before.
No, Windows Mail stores the messages in a completely different format than Outlook Express did. It allows you to set the folder for messages though, so you can use a folder of your choice. The procedure is the same as it was with OE: go to Maintenance and change the store folder. What I did was back up the old messages folder and then deleted the contents so Windows Mail could start fresh.
If you know of any utility that allows you to just read OE messages I'd like to know about it. I suppose I could get Outlook if nothing else if I need to look at the old messages.
If you know of any utility that allows you to just read OE messages I'd like to know about it. I suppose I could get Outlook if nothing else if I need to look at the old messages.
Since I just did the move from 2K to XP to Vista in the span of a few days, I'll let you in on what I've done and learned.
Any outside storage drives will be left intact. The main primary drive is the one you have to be careful with.
For my installation, I split my boot drive into 2 partitions, one for XP, one for Vista 64 Ultimate.
It dual boots with no issues, first XP was installed, tweaked, updated and setup identical to my previous 2K setup.
Next I installed Vista onto the second partition and it automatically assigns dual boot to your system. For reference, both OSes are setup the same (to keep familiarity and downtime to a minimum for me).
To get my messages from XP to Vista was fairly simple. Go to your Outlook Directory in your profile. It will be in Documents and Settings->(User Name)->Local Settings->Application Data->Identities->(Some Random Hex Numbers)->Microsoft->Outlook Express.
Copy the Outlook Express Folder to one of your storage drives. (Vista can be a pain sometimes when dealing with permissions on the other OS drive). In Vista, just open up Windows Mail and go to Import. You can pick OE as a source and from a directory. Choose your mail folder and it will import all your messages.
If you're like me and not dead set on transitioning 100% (and we know Vista DOESN'T work with everything yet...) then you will want to keep your Vista mail and XP mail from getting in each other's hair. What I did was create myself a second gmail account and had my primary forward e-mail to my secondary account. My Windows Mail in Vista downloads it's own mail and whenever I am in XP, I will download my primary mail so I know I won't miss any messages and still retain copies of all mail in both OSes without having to do a musical chair game for e-mail.
As far as the experience and comparisons of the 2 oses.
I like Vista's interface. It's much nicer to work with than XP. Unfortunately it's also slower than XP's interface. If you really want to, you can load up the classic theme and basically go back to the 2K look for almost everything. Still though, control panel items and setting changes will retain their Vista concept of the User is evil and must not be allowed to tweak anything outside of option boxes and check boxes. Even if you disable User Access Control (and you better full well know WTF you are doing before you do that) you are still treated as a user than the administrator for a lot of basic settings from network connection to defrag etc.
Gaming works in Vista. No direct comparisons, but between FEAR, Bioshock, Quake 4 and Far Cry they work fine in both OSes. Actually I installed them to the same directory as before. If you have the game setup the way you want and are only changing the OS, then I suggest renaming the old game folder ie for me I:\Games\FEAR becomes I:\Games\FEARx, then install to I:\Games\FEAR in Vista, then delete the new install, rename the old install back and you can start up your game just like nothing happened to the OS. As a bonus, you can boot back into XP if you dual boot and whatever progress or changes you made while playing in Vista will still be around in your game should you want to fire it up while back to using XP.
All my movies/music play fine. Just install the same codec pack you did back in XP and it'll be alright. I found XP WMP ver 11 crashed with certain codecs (so I'm using WMP9 there), while Vista WMP ver 11 doesn't crash with the exact same codec and movie...
Driver support is different. If you are an unlucky XFI owner, I suggest downloading the recent May release ISO of the installation CD. That way you get to keep your Creative Apps. Then update to the recent Web release drivers. The interface is different slightly, but I found I have more control over the XFI in Vista than I do in XP. I also found that Vista disabled DirectSound hardware support. If it isn't supported in Alchemy or patched with Vista in mind, you get crumby stereo sound only, no 3D surround support even with headphones.
With XP I was able to "work around" my 1:1 aspect ratio problem with my nvidia card, in Vista, 1:1 forced aspect ratio is BROKEN completely with no workaround. Results may vary depending on your display.
Benchmarking, overclocking etc is a bit more of a pain in Vista. If you want RivaTuner or CoreTemp to just work, you have to disable Driver Signing BEFORE you boot into the OS.
All told, almost all my programs worked with Vista, and there were some with 64 bit versions for a touch more stability.
Just remember one thing. GET ALL THE PATCHES for Vista, every hotfix you can get your hands on. A lot address the compatibility or else that magic like of "almost all my programs work" was previously "Why the F$!#@ doesn't this work, or WHY IS IT SLOW???"
Any outside storage drives will be left intact. The main primary drive is the one you have to be careful with.
For my installation, I split my boot drive into 2 partitions, one for XP, one for Vista 64 Ultimate.
It dual boots with no issues, first XP was installed, tweaked, updated and setup identical to my previous 2K setup.
Next I installed Vista onto the second partition and it automatically assigns dual boot to your system. For reference, both OSes are setup the same (to keep familiarity and downtime to a minimum for me).
To get my messages from XP to Vista was fairly simple. Go to your Outlook Directory in your profile. It will be in Documents and Settings->(User Name)->Local Settings->Application Data->Identities->(Some Random Hex Numbers)->Microsoft->Outlook Express.
Copy the Outlook Express Folder to one of your storage drives. (Vista can be a pain sometimes when dealing with permissions on the other OS drive). In Vista, just open up Windows Mail and go to Import. You can pick OE as a source and from a directory. Choose your mail folder and it will import all your messages.
If you're like me and not dead set on transitioning 100% (and we know Vista DOESN'T work with everything yet...) then you will want to keep your Vista mail and XP mail from getting in each other's hair. What I did was create myself a second gmail account and had my primary forward e-mail to my secondary account. My Windows Mail in Vista downloads it's own mail and whenever I am in XP, I will download my primary mail so I know I won't miss any messages and still retain copies of all mail in both OSes without having to do a musical chair game for e-mail.
As far as the experience and comparisons of the 2 oses.
I like Vista's interface. It's much nicer to work with than XP. Unfortunately it's also slower than XP's interface. If you really want to, you can load up the classic theme and basically go back to the 2K look for almost everything. Still though, control panel items and setting changes will retain their Vista concept of the User is evil and must not be allowed to tweak anything outside of option boxes and check boxes. Even if you disable User Access Control (and you better full well know WTF you are doing before you do that) you are still treated as a user than the administrator for a lot of basic settings from network connection to defrag etc.
Gaming works in Vista. No direct comparisons, but between FEAR, Bioshock, Quake 4 and Far Cry they work fine in both OSes. Actually I installed them to the same directory as before. If you have the game setup the way you want and are only changing the OS, then I suggest renaming the old game folder ie for me I:\Games\FEAR becomes I:\Games\FEARx, then install to I:\Games\FEAR in Vista, then delete the new install, rename the old install back and you can start up your game just like nothing happened to the OS. As a bonus, you can boot back into XP if you dual boot and whatever progress or changes you made while playing in Vista will still be around in your game should you want to fire it up while back to using XP.
All my movies/music play fine. Just install the same codec pack you did back in XP and it'll be alright. I found XP WMP ver 11 crashed with certain codecs (so I'm using WMP9 there), while Vista WMP ver 11 doesn't crash with the exact same codec and movie...
Driver support is different. If you are an unlucky XFI owner, I suggest downloading the recent May release ISO of the installation CD. That way you get to keep your Creative Apps. Then update to the recent Web release drivers. The interface is different slightly, but I found I have more control over the XFI in Vista than I do in XP. I also found that Vista disabled DirectSound hardware support. If it isn't supported in Alchemy or patched with Vista in mind, you get crumby stereo sound only, no 3D surround support even with headphones.
With XP I was able to "work around" my 1:1 aspect ratio problem with my nvidia card, in Vista, 1:1 forced aspect ratio is BROKEN completely with no workaround. Results may vary depending on your display.
Benchmarking, overclocking etc is a bit more of a pain in Vista. If you want RivaTuner or CoreTemp to just work, you have to disable Driver Signing BEFORE you boot into the OS.
All told, almost all my programs worked with Vista, and there were some with 64 bit versions for a touch more stability.
Just remember one thing. GET ALL THE PATCHES for Vista, every hotfix you can get your hands on. A lot address the compatibility or else that magic like of "almost all my programs work" was previously "Why the F$!#@ doesn't this work, or WHY IS IT SLOW???"
A
altcon
Guest
THIS HAS TO BE DONE BEFORE HAND. You can't mirror copies on the server once you've downloaded them !
Most probably Vista Mail supports OE since they're both MS product which come with the OS (bluntly, MS would be stupid not to have that feature).
As for programs, most programs do work on Vista, but you need to check before you make the transfer. Example - SQL 2000 will not work on Vista, but 2005 will.
So google per app, or look up MSs list (they have one online).
BinarySynapse
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Vista's Windows mail will import OE6 settings and messages from an OE6 folder. I think you also have to make sure the files are NOT set read-only.
Start up Windows Mail
Open the "File" menu and select "Import"
In the submenu that pops up select "Messages"
In the dialog box that pops up select "Outlook Exress 6"
The button for "Import from an OE6 store directory" should already be highlight so just click next.
In the next windowm, if the folder where you have your OE6 backups doesn't appear in the textbox click browse.
You'll need to find the folder where all the .dbx files are stored and click Open
Back in the "Location of Messages" window click next. This should lead to a new window that asks what folder you want to import. Just select which folders you want and click Next or Finish (can't remember which it is).
Start up Windows Mail
Open the "File" menu and select "Import"
In the submenu that pops up select "Messages"
In the dialog box that pops up select "Outlook Exress 6"
The button for "Import from an OE6 store directory" should already be highlight so just click next.
In the next windowm, if the folder where you have your OE6 backups doesn't appear in the textbox click browse.
You'll need to find the folder where all the .dbx files are stored and click Open
Back in the "Location of Messages" window click next. This should lead to a new window that asks what folder you want to import. Just select which folders you want and click Next or Finish (can't remember which it is).
A
altcon
Guest
EH, I've noticed the Dual Boot based on Vistas menu tends to get corrupt many times (you can search for threads). I dual boot but I do it using the Bios boot menu (in Asus boards that means pressing F8 in the first Bios screen). To do that you have to disable the drive that has your XP on it when installing Vista, that way their BootLoader will not overwrite XP's and you can have a hardware dual boot solution.
Mr. Bluntman
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Great post Slade. 
I just migrated from XP Professional to Vista Ultimate x64 myself, and now I'm going to grab all of those hotfixes.
I just migrated from XP Professional to Vista Ultimate x64 myself, and now I'm going to grab all of those hotfixes.
If you want a hardware based dualboot solution there's an easier way to do it...
Get yourself a drivesled. Have your main OS on the internal drive, have your secondary OS on the drive in the sled. Set the bios to boot from the sled first, the internal drive second.
Now, most every drive sled I've seen has a key that you turn to lock the sled in place... and if it's not turned, the drive isn't read. So now you've got a key that you can use like a switch (but only when the computer is off!). No more messing with F8 and bios boot menus. Simply turn the key and hit the power button.
Or just load grub or lilo if you don't like MS's bootloader...
A
altcon
Guest
I fail to see how this is easier....If you want a hardware based dualboot solution there's an easier way to do it...
Get yourself a drivesled. Have your main OS on the internal drive, have your secondary OS on the drive in the sled. Set the bios to boot from the sled first, the internal drive second.
Now, most every drive sled I've seen has a key that you turn to lock the sled in place... and if it's not turned, the drive isn't read. So now you've got a key that you can use like a switch (but only when the computer is off!). No more messing with F8 and bios boot menus. Simply turn the key and hit the power button.
Or just load grub or lilo if you don't like MS's bootloader...
He has to press a single button on reboot (which you have to do anyway when switching between OS).
As Drexl said; it completely isolates your other file system from overly intrusive OSes
As for using the bios, I fail to see how going into the bios and changing the boot order is a single button press?
Edit: NM, misunderstood, thought he was talking about changing the bios-boot order. Wasn't aware of ASUS allowing you to do a one-time change like that. Handy (still more than one button press though )
As for using the bios, I fail to see how going into the bios and changing the boot order is a single button press?
Edit: NM, misunderstood, thought he was talking about changing the bios-boot order. Wasn't aware of ASUS allowing you to do a one-time change like that. Handy
(still more than one button press though )
A
altcon
Guest
yes two, f8 and enter....As Drexl said; it completely isolates your other file system from overly intrusive OSes
As for using the bios, I fail to see how going into the bios and changing the boot order is a single button press?
Edit: NM, misunderstood, thought he was talking about changing the bios-boot order. Wasn't aware of ASUS allowing you to do a one-time change like that. Handy
BTW I have system restore disabled for all drives.partitions but the OS ones ...so its not a problem....