Windows 7: Windows 7

Well have you tried burning another dvd? That could be a bad burn you are working with. I myself think ms wants you to upgrade from vista? right? They do not want an upgrade from 7Beta but they do from Vista, Surley they will be selling upgrade versions shortly? Reburn with the slowest speed posible and try again.

Any, and I mean, ANY modifications that "optimization" utilities might have done to your WinSxS will prevent upgrade. And if you played around with vLite or anything you can be sure you've blocked your upgrade path. Dig around for your disks and serials for those bought programs and/or contact the manufacturers if you've lost either of them. Do a dual boot as suggested by others. Run Easy Transfer from 7 and tell it to write the Easy Transfer app to the Vista volume. Boot to Vista and run it. Save the transfer file somewhere that 7 can get to it. Boot back into 7, install your programs and then run Easy Transfer again to restore your files and settings to the 7 volume.

The thing I do here from the start is not upgrading over but seeing a clean install of each to avoid problems like this to start with. 7 is still not a finished version where you can easily upgrade over any previous version at this point.

Right from the start when the first betas were out the MS warning was simply to try and run it as your main OS but install it separately. They still recommend a clean install for the RCs as well. I ought to know that one from multibooting across more then one drive seeing a fresh install of everything as a rule.

just use easybcd or a program that will allow you to create hardrive partitions and just install win 7 rc on the partition u created. Don't bother with upgrding as it just has the potential to go wrong.

EasyBCD won't allow you to created partitions but see entries made in both the Vista and 7 boot loaders for each of the other or an older version like XP or other legacy version as well as seeing Linux or Mac added in. The full documentattion for the free tool can be seen at EasyBCD Documentation Home - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

what amount of empty space left on the vista partition? for upgradation there should be at least 15 GB (to be prcise, 130% of the occupied space as during upgradation process, old windows and other third party program files are dumped and saved for later retrieval) empty space left on the vista partition. if less than this, then you can't go for upgradation, only for custaom(clean)install.

When going to install 7 and using the custom option for the same partition Vista will be packed up into the Windows.old folder just the same. The custom option simply sees 7 replace Vista entirely not perform any upgrade.

The best options are either setting up a dual boot or making room to see Vista replaced entirely. With enough free drive space on the main Vista primary you can use a tool like GParted live to see that shrunk down in size for a good 30gb second primary with some room onhand for seeing various programs installed on 7 plus the room for the default paging file.

How's it going Mike (OP)? Are you getting anywhere?
There's lots of good advice here and I'd still favour a dual boot.
That's what I have done and I'm loving it, although I'm spending less and less time in Vista.
I still have my games in Vista, largely because I read some people were having problems with Steam in Windows 7 on these forums.
This will no doubt get sorted out but illustrates why a dual boot is a good idea at this stage.
The gparted tool is easy to use and once you have got your partition created the dual boot setup is also easy to do.
As I said before there are step by step tutorials on this and other tech forums. If you can't find one on here you could google it and find one you like.

best wishes, John

Hi there
To UPGRADE

1) run the install (setup.exe) from WITHIN VISTA
2) it will first do a compatability check - it will then probably give you a message saying WINDOWS NEEDS TO RESTART to continue.
3) REMOVE THE DVD and re-boot.
4) After re-boot start setup again FROM WITHIN VISTA
5) Now it should work fine -- DO NOT PRESS a key at when the system re-boots again at the boot prompt

Cheers
jimbo

While RCs are in much better shape then the beta stage 7000s I still wouldn't recommend an upgrade over Vista but simply upgrade to repair the RC if any problems come up. For seeing a working dual boot or replacing Vista entirely you have two highly recommended options of seeing 7 installed either by custom install to see Vista packed up or by installing 7 to a second primary being made the default OS at first.

Since both versions use the same type of boot loader there is no unhiding and copying of protected system files over from one primary to the other. The entire installation will be automatic. Later you can opt to use the BCD editor itself a separate tool to set which will be default as well as removing the "previous version of Windows" item from the boot options screens as well as renaming entries.

The BCD 1.1.1 tool is available at BCD 1.1.1 free download. BCD is a command-line utility that builds and burns a bootable or non-bootable CD-Rom fully automatic, from any workstation in your network that has a CD-Rewritable or CD-recorder device. That will work quite well for taking care of the previous version entry as well as setting which will be default. The default can also be set in the mconfig boot tab there as well as setting the boot options display time often lowered from the default 30 seconds.

For the more advanced setup across two drives or adding in another OS then the recommend for the EasyBCD tool would be the obvious choice. Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies I'm still waiting to see if the next version of that will preserve the 7 splash screen at boot over seeing the Vista screen instead for the present version.