Cant upgrade from Vista Home Premium to 7 Home PremiumN

Vista SP1 ??? maybe install SP2 then try?

Rgds
Rod

If you bought it from MS, you have their excellent tech support.

Whoever else provided the download should support it as well.

I would take the error message since it is specific. Your underlying NTFS is not recognized and it wants the drive formatted first. You need to save your Vista files, or use the Easy Transfer utility to do it for you, then boot from your DVD and do a clean install.

Fortunately you can accomplish this with the Upgrade disk, although you may have to follow one of the workarounds in the comprehensive tutorial below if it rejects your key the first time (briefly: install anyway, try to activate from Properties page, if not run an Upgrade (repair) install from new desktop trying to insert key before and after). So far no one who tries these workarounds reports not being able to clean install from boot with the Upgrade media.

Doing a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

**UPDATE** I read an article from Microsoft regarding the paths that do not work. On the list was Microsoft Vista Home Premium to Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium N. I uninstalled 7 Home Premium N and DL 7 Home Premium. Works perfectly. If I find the article again, I will post. Good Luck.

Here is the link that supports my information. Windows Vista Home Premium does NOT upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium N. I was able to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium today and was denied upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium N.

BTW I have Vista service pack 2.

Windows 7 SKU Supported and Unsupported Upgrade Paths (Official) My Digital Life

I have been getting the 'unsupported version of ntfs' error trying to upgrade Windows Vista Basic to Windows 7 Home Premium and I really do not want to reformat my hard drive and do a custom install (I have too many programs that won't allow me to reinstall them without being a REAL headache).
Are there ANY other options? Can you in anyway update ntfs without destroying the information that is on the hard drive?
Thanks!

You'd have had to do Upgrades all the forward from Win2000 to have NTFS3 format which generates that error: Windows cannot be upgraded because the hard disk partition is formatted with an unsupported version of the NTFS file system

A solution is discussed there but don't you think it's time to have a Clean Install of the best OS ever, not compromised by so many years and versions of Windows that you could never possibly have Win7 native perfect performance?

If so I'd strongly consider a Clean Install Windows 7.

There are many tips compiled here based on our collective experience in tens of thousands of installs we've directly helped with since beta: Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. The steps work fine for retail.

I am still confused why I am having this problem because, if I am not mistaken, originally I started with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 or 2005 (I can't remember exactly) and NOT Windows 2000. Then I upgraded that to Vista Home Basic. So why then am I having this error message of "Windows cannot be upgraded because the hard disk partition is formatted with an unsupported version of the NTFS file system?"

Anyway, I am debating whether to bite the bullet and go a head and do a custom install doing 64-bit Windows 7 instead of 32-bit. I know my hardware could handle that... although I do know I would loose some of my software in the process due to incompatibility. I know I would be happy with Windows 7 eventually...but reinstalling everything...UGH. I hate to think about it. I am also not sure if my Microsoft Office 2007 (upgraded from Office 2003) would allow me to do that one more time. From my past experience with other installs of Office I think I've reached my limit...

O well...I think I am going to stew on this a while.

Thanks for your very helpful information!

Oh... one other thing... I DID do a NTFS format check with the commandfsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo c:
And it came up with the information that told me the problem. My hard drive is formatted to NTFS 3.0, which I believe is from Windows 2000. How it got that I do not know. I DO know that I reinstalled Windows XP a couple of times in the past... maybe in my hard drive problems I grabbed the Windows 2000 CD and use it for repair or something... who knows. Not that it all really changes anything, the hard drive is still incompatible.

What Office limit? You can have it installed on one PC At a time for life.

Any programs that balk can be tried in Compatibility Mode.

I'd only use 64 bit with 4 gb or more RAM.

You only need to do a perfect install once then preserve it as an image which can be used in place of Reinstall or transferred to any PC with our help.

We see tens of thousands of cases here and yours looks more overdue than most.