Upgrade from Vista Ultimate 32bit?

Hey all,

This is my first post here...

I have a dual boot machine with XP Pro & Visat Ultimate 32 currently. I bought the rig from a self-build guy a year ago, Looks like Vista was a bogey copy and I'm being prompted to buy a key (which I have no problem with)

That said, does anyone know WHEN seven becomes available for the public, will there be an edition available so I can just upgrade my Vista 32 and keep all my files / settings etc... ie that I don't have to scrub my hard drive.

Sorry if it's a dumb question!

Thanks in advance!

The backup feature seen in Vista probably won't help for 7 when that finally comes but simply for restoring or reinstalling Vista where you have a problem presently. But since you are dual booting with XP you will still have a working copy of Windows to back things up from the Vista side of things until 7 is out.

Once 7 is out with all files and settings which will need review for the new version there as well you would simply plan a clean sweep of the Vista primary for the authentic 7. The settings will be seen a little bit different there like a bookmarks bar instead of the links bar for IE 8.

There's no more Classic Windows theme but an Aero Basic to start with until and if you decide to download any custom themes. Since you didn't sign up for the beta testing you want to get familiar with some interesting changes that will seen in 7 from Vista. The home page is seen at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/

A lengthy slideshow to provide a good look at 7 is seen at Windows 7

Hi Sticker,

To follow up on Barman's post, here's the link.

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/

If M$ believes you are a genuine unsuspecting victim - you might be lucky.

Hope it helps

SIW2

When planning to upgrade from one version to the next newer here I generally end up setting up a dual boot to evaluate it along with getting familiar with the differences before replacing the main currently in use.

Let's see dos/3.1, 3.1/95, 95/98, 98/XP jumping over ME!, to see XP/Vista, and now XP/Vista/7 betas.

I never seem to have time to upgrade over one version since I was always seeing a clean install of one or another. By the time 7 is out you may end up dumping XP to make space for 7 in a dual with Vista there.

Well you have to remember that dos/3.1 wasn't actually a dual boot but simply seeing 3.1 loaded from a dos prompt. 95 and NT were the first there to see autoloading versions in their own catagory.

Let's see if we name off the actual not so good versions where do we start? Can't start with 1.0 or 2.0! Those introduced the concept. 3.11 saw network support for the 3.0 line up. 95 saw 95PLUS! with the OSR2 release included for a 95+ grading while 98 1st edition followed by "ME" then XP 64bit lacking support were the sad cases for the most part.

Vista got some to call that ME II when XP 64 took the title. So! I guess just about everyone is looking forward to 7 presently!

Thanks for the very helpful replies everyone!

I actually got the first "You may be a victim of counterfiting" at startup and proceed to go online with my credit card to buy a fresh key - My local shop advertises Vista Ultimate at €300 - but M/Soft offered a special price of €177. I got to the payment screen and an error occured, so I decided to try later...

Good thing I did, after reading soem of your posts, I'll wait till Monday and ring Microsoft and see what they say... Anyone any recomendations? I don't want to just ASK them for a free key - what would be the best way of going about it?!

Thanks again everyone!