Well after the 2 hour install:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=56917&page=4

Here is a rundown of some strange things I have come across:

I run a small domain 25 users on MS Small Business Server 2003

They upgrade linked above is on a Windows XP Professional machine that is joined to the domain with my user credentials as a member of the administrator's group.

AVG - Had to reinstall told me it encountered problems trying to start up. Not a big deal reinstalled and rebooted and it worked fine.

Palm Life Drive - Seems the hotsync works but I cannot access the drive itself through the drive manager software. No fix available from Palm. Not a big deal for me.

702.35MB of updates needed to be downloaded through Windows Update. (I run SQL Management console on this workstation so some of it was for that).

Windows Live Messenger needed updating. Required a reboot.

Some really ugly large icons set by default in Vista. Had to download a utility to get rid of the shortcut arrow (that looked worse then BEOS) then had to decrease icon size.


I will update the above list as more problems creep up...


Now here is the real killer that has me on the verge of wiping the system and going back to XP.

I run a laptop and my desktop in my office. I type this on a Macbook Pro while the Vista machine is a Dell. I run Windows XP Pro on my Macbook Pro while at the office. I have 3-4 mapped drives. Of course one of them is a map to my personal drive on the SBS server ie //server/users/quicksilver.

I was accessing the folder all morning while the install was happening on my Dell. I came back from lunch and the upgrade was about done. I logged in and began to tweak and fix the things mentioned above. i jumped over to my Mac and browsed to my //server/users/quicksilver folder and double click. "Bing" ACCESS DENIED.

I RDP into the server and check the permissions and nothing has changed. I check for encryption on the drive thinking that Vista may have touched the personal drive on the server since it map's it by default through the login script. No encryption and no permission changes. So now I am stuck trying to figure out what may have happened. I am a member of the admin group for the domain and I cannot access the users folders at all other than the parent //server/user

I will keep this post upgated as sort of a smallish blog. If you guys have questions fire away. I will be doing my upgrade from Windows Media Center 2005 to Vista Ultimate tonight....if I have any of the 3 hairs left on my head by then


Wednesday Jan. 31

Cannot sync my Motorola Q (smartphone) with Vista and Outlook 2007 at this point. I have downloaded the Beta 4.2 active sync with no luck. Stuck on trying to connect to device.

Installed Office 2007 yesterday before i left work (Small Business Edition)

Outlook connects to my exchange server (2003) and was able to migrate all settings fine.
Very slow in the beginning to get my folders setup and cached.
Enjoying the new interface and plan to test out Word and Excel today.

Ok so now I am about to upgrade my home machine. Well one of them thankfully I have my iMac to write this post with.

Spec's for my Windows PC are:

Asus P5NSLI
Intel Core 2 Duo 6400
2GB OCZ
3 x 250GB SATA Drives
EVGA 7900GTO 512
Sound Blaster Audigy 2
2 X 20" Dell 2005FP LCD's

Currently running Windows MCE 2005
- no TV recording
- streaming media to Xbox 360 using Transcode 360

4:52pm local start time

6:08pm Checking Computer performance - and I thought I had a pretty fast computer for Vista...ha

6:17pm logged in and ready to start the fixing process.

It sounds like you did an 'upgrade' from xp... if so you're braver than me, I've never had an upgrade go smoothly. I always re-install from scratch.

I'm tempted to give it a try, does vista own the mbr or are will it run from another partition... so that I could set up a dual-boot?

Yes I did an in-place upgrade on both machines. I want to test how the in-place upgrades will go for clients on my network and people who call me up asking me about vista.

The upgrade from XP Pro and MCE 2005 for the most part was painless other than the issues I have described in this thread and the Vista Poll thread.

As for Dual Booting it can be done. Make sure you back up everything. I decided upon the in-place upgrade for th etime being since there is talk that you cannot do a clean install with an upgrade disk liek you could with XP. I still cannot find a straight answer to this. I have heard it does not pertain to Ultimate or Business.

http://www.windowstalk.org/dual_boot_vista.htm

From what I have read, you can't upgrade to Vista unless Windows XP is installed on the machine. (no more put in the cd on a clean install to be able to use the upgrade)

So Quicksilver, I calculate your upgrade at 1 hour and 25 minutes. Was that unattended? Did you have any dialog boxes pop that stopped the process?

I have XP Home and a AMD 4400 Dual Core and am wondering if I should try it.

My other concern is drivers, any problems yet?


(edit: was typing this before previous post went up)

Yes the upgrade on this machine took 1:25 give or take a minute. Once the product key is in and the compatibility check is done there are 2-3 prompts in a row asking if you want to upgrade or a clean install etc. I made my supper when the screen hit "Copying files". At that point there are 2-3 reboots where it comes back to the same screen and moves down teh process from Copying, Extracting and Gathering. I believe the final step is Installing. Once that is finished you get the black screen after a reboot saying that Windows is preparing to start for the first time. Approximately 5-7 minutes from there to my desktop where I can start to fix and tweak.

Here are a few quick and easy tips..

The icons are huge...change them. Right click desktop->View->Classic Icons

Run Aero. It is a nice piece of eye candy.

Have a good cup of coffee with you once windows boots...

Have you compared the performance when you aren't running Aero? From what I have heard, it is a big CPU hog.

Am just about to upgrade my windows media centre 2005 to vista ultimate. After reading what you had to say there Silver, I am less woried about any glitches.

Office 2007 enterprise is already running ok, and I like the look of the new icons and the GUI. I am a network analyst that also runs computer solutions business on the side. My new machine is an intel core 2 duo E6300, with nvidia geforce 7300LE, 2GB ram, and 300 GB HD

As for Dual Booting it can be done.No it cannot if you are using Vista Upgrade, unless you have 2 XP licenses already because you will automatically lose 1 XP license when you upgrade to Vista:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showpost.php?p=499968&postcount=63

I thought I read that the Ultimate and Business upgrades can be used for clean installs? I have read so much lately on this that things are all blending together.:)

Performance without Aero is very noticeable on my business machine. Turning off Aero makes the system snappier for opening programs and multitasking. Flip3D seems to be quite intensive on the system as a whole.

For those who want a clean install with a upgrade copy

Work around here (http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/01/30/bloggers_slam_vista/)

you will automatically lose 1 XP license when you upgrade to Vista
Yet another nail in the coffin for Vista. I had to run Win2000 and WinXP as a dual boot for months due to software incompatibilities. A switch to Vista and lose WinXP is not an option, workaround or no.

This raises another question. Can you downgrade to WinXP once the XP license is revoked? I'm guessing the old WinXP key will no longer work at all. :o

BHoward that is an interesting article but I see no mention of a workaround for the upgrade by clean install problem?

opps .... wrong link

Here is the good link (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5932)

That new link shows that you can do clean installs with Vista Upgrade after Paul Thurrott discovered a loophole. The trick is to install Vista Upgrade without entering the key (so that it becomes a 30-day trial) then use it to install Vista Upgrade (again).

Is it legal?

So basically you are taking a trial version of Vista (without key) and upgrading to Vista (with key) and deleting the windows.old directory after. Where is the upgrade check for XP or previous version? Is it using the unlicensed Vista install as the OS to upgrade from?

Weird loophole. Legal? No idea. Does MS deserve it? Sure. Clean upgrade installs using legit CD's from previous OS versions is a big deal to me.

Once setup has completed for the second time, you should be able to activate Windows Vista normally. You can also delete the Windows.old directory which contains information from the first Vista install.


You still have to activate the install with your key. I think it is legal because you are not stealing a copy of Vista.

But are you not upgrading without having to provide the prior windows verification? No cd check no key check...basically upgrading Vista to Vista.

Yes I think that the dishonest among us may buy an upgrade copy and install it this way .... but then they probably will not pay for it at all.

If you are doing it legally ... why not?