Upgrading Vista 64 to 7 64 - Any problems?

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deadman_uk

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I have Vista 64bit Home Premium and already know I can upgrade to Windows 7 without doing a clean install but is it worth it? Of course, a clean install would be better but I don't wish to back up and install everything again.

Will upgrading to 7 be ok? I mean will there be errors and problems that would not be there if I did a clean install?
 
Snowknight26 said:
No one knows, and you won't know either until you try.
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Fair enough but what about drivers? Vista 64 and 7 64 are basically the same OS right? I mean any Vista 64bit driver should be fine in Windows 7, or is this not the case?
 
I bought the full version and then did an upgrade from Vista 64 to Win7 64 first, to see if I'd have any issues before resorting to backing up a half terabyte of files via USB to an external.

So far, no issues. It has only been three weeks, maybe. All I did prior was download graphics and sound drivers to a separate drive, uninstall the old ones, and then start the upgrade. After the upgrade I installed the new Win7 drivers and rebooted. The only snag I had was with Creative's X-Fi drivers (naturally) not wanting to output digital to my receiver. I had to track down Daniel_K's "X-Fi Support Pack 2.0" which solved everything. No problems since.
 
I would recommend a clean install. You should be backing up all your data to begin with, and this is just another reason for seperate OS and DATA partitions.
 
Thanks all,

REDYOUCH, I already have seperate OS and DATA paritions but a clean install would mean reinstalling all my programs and games which would take forever. I will try a normal install and if I get any problems I will do a clean one. Of course, I will backup my important data before doing any of this.
 
I usually go for the full wipe/install myself, but this time I did both the work and home pc as an upgrade (Vista Enterprise x64 and Vista Ultimate x64 to Win7 Enterprise x64 and Win7 Ultimate x64 respectively). The only problems I ran into was video drivers. Win 7 would boot up and would get a black screen with mouse. Quick boot into safe mode and reinstall of the video drivers worked. Also had to reinstall the Anti-virus software and VMWare Workstation. At home I had to deauthorize itunes for the pc and then reauthorize it when done (The upgrade warns you of this too).

Other than that both upgrades went smoothly and I've been using both pc's for a few weeks now without issue. I haven't found a program that hasn't worked since the upgrade.
 
Upgraded from Vista 64 to Win 7 64. Took two tries to complete successfully. Had to unplug usb printer as it was causing install to hang at 75%. Nice thing was rollback to Vista worked flawlessly after first upgrade failed. Nice to be back where you started rather than left with a sporked sysytem. Good Luck.
 
With the help of Paul Thurrott's pages; I had no issues upgrading from Vista Ultimate x64 to the EDU version of 7 Pro x64. I did select custom install instead of upgrade. (everything from previous install gets moved to windows.old) And I didn't activate until three days afterward. Works fine.
 
I went from Vista x64 to 7 x64 on the laptop and did a clean install on the desktop machine. It's hard to tell them apart, they both run great. I'd have no problem recommending an upgrade, it works just fine.
 
I had to do a clean vista then upgrade to win 7 x4 Ultimates and I ran into an issue where the computer would freeze on coming out of sleep mode. I'm testing it now to see if it still does it but the solution was a clean install of ONLY win 7 which I did just now. I'll let you know how it goes but just a friendly heads up ;)
 
deadman_uk said:
Fair enough but what about drivers? Vista 64 and 7 64 are basically the same OS right? I mean any Vista 64bit driver should be fine in Windows 7, or is this not the case?
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Vista drivers work in Win7 for the most part. Like others have said, you'll be fine.

soulesschild said:
I had to do a clean vista then upgrade to win 7 x4 Ultimate
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Good. Upgrading is a terrible idea anyway. Always clean install.
 
Jon55 said:
Vista drivers work in Win7 for the most part. Like others have said, you'll be fine.



Good. Upgrading is a terrible idea anyway. Always clean install.
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true in the past, not now. Shouldnt be any sideffects from an upgrade from vista to win7 whatsoever.
 
Upgraded now, all is fine. Little problem with sound and video drivers but nothing a reinstall won't fix.

Thanks all
 
It is definitely a positive that this process seems to be working much better in the past. I think my only issue with it...by the time I did the prep work to do the upgrade, I could have just done a fresh install anyway.
 
Jon55 said:
Vista drivers work in Win7 for the most part. Like others have said, you'll be fine.



Good. Upgrading is a terrible idea anyway. Always clean install.
Click to expand...

This is true. Was my fault for not doing a proper clean install. For whatever reason, I couldn't get it to recognize my Win 7 USB install and at the time I only had a Vista x64 Ultimate Disc. So, I installed Vista cleanly, then through Vista, upgraded to Win 7 through USB. Strange but it worked at the time. This time around I have a properly made bootable USB ;)
 
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