vista to windows 7. Some questions.

At the moment I am using windows vista home premium. I have some questions regarding my wishes to upgrade. I don't have my spec here but i remember something. 500gb harddrive. 8800gts. quadcore with 2,66ghz and 4gb ram.

1. I bought vista not long after it was released. Will I get the cheap ugrade function? Or is my vista too old?

2. If i download the beta version, will there be a swift and easy upgrade to the live version?

3. Will my system performance suffer a great deal from upgrading to windows 7 without removing vista first? or is it ok to have two OS's installed at the same time? Or will windows' upgrade function make the upgrade very smooth so there won't be much difference from installing 7 on an empty drive to upgrading vista?

Sry for all those questions, and if you are able to answer them I would be very happy for it. Thanks.

First Welcome to the forums.

Your copy of Vista is to old, however, if they are still offering it you can go to Amazon, or another software outlet and place an order for the upgrade (at reduce prices). If you can order the upgrade you won't get it until Oct. 22.

You can at present go to the Microsoft Download center and download the Windows Seven RC (Version 7100) until Aug. 20th. This version will come with an activation key, and is good until March 2010.

Your performance will not suffer, in fact you will notice a marked improvement over Vista. If you are running a 64bit system then download the x64 version of win 7. The installation time should on the average take less than 30 minutes (mine loaded into approximately 12 minutes).

Instead of upgrading, it would be a good idea to do a dual boot. If you are unsure of how to setup a dual boot you can get all the information on dual booting where on the forums.

Never say your sorry for your questions here on the forums, we all get a kick out of helping others with problems. If you need help just type "Help" in your header then what type of problem you are having.

If you type in your system spec in user CP then all will be able to get your system information by clicking on the "My System Specs" located on the bottom left of your post screen.

Thank you mate.
I will download windows 7 RC now! looking forward to it.

But one question that popped into my head right now when you said dual boot: Is there an idea to uninstall vista after i got 7 too? or will I erase all my old files when I do that?

There is uninstall of Vista a such. You could delete the files from Vista , from withing Windows 7 that are no longer needed. You will most likely not be able to format the Vista partition without a little bit of work as the Windows boot files will be there. There is always the Windows Easy Transfer - Transfer To & From Computers for transferring files.

Whether you decide to dual boot or just do an upgrade you should always backup all your files that are important to you, just in case something goes wrong. Remember with dual boot you will be able to use vista if you deem it necessary. Once you have the retail version (come Oct. 22) you can then decide further or not to dispense with vista and go with win 7 only. At that point you can determine whether you will need vista, and if not it would be smart to do a clean install (again remember to backup your files).:)