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Vista Upgrade Matrix 94

Posted by timothy from the but-linux-is-fragmented dept.
Tyler Too writes "With six different versions of Vista due once it ships, figuring out an upgrade path can be confusing. Microsoft has tried to clear things up with a 4x6 matrix laying out your options. 'In short, users of XP Home can do an upgrade install to any of the four Vista versions. However, XP Pro users can only perform upgrade installs to Business or Ultimate.' And if you're not running a 32-bit version Windows XP, there's no upgrade path for you at all."
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Vista Upgrade Matrix More

Vista Upgrade Matrix

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  • Some slight FUD in the summary... (Score:5, Informative)

    by metasecure ( 946666 ) * on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:37PM (#15819166)
    Some slight FUD in the summary, specifically the line that reads "And if you're not running a 32-bit version Windows XP, there's no upgrade path for you at all."

    From TFA: "Note that the requirement for clean installs does not mean that the user is required to purchase a full version of the operating system. XP Pro, XP Pro x64 and Windows 2000 users will still be able to purchase the "upgrade edition" of any version of Vista. They just won't be able to upgrade with their existing files and settings in place."

    Of course, personally I would reccomend doing a clean install no matter what version of Windows you currently have, so for me this is a moot point.

    P.S. I thought timothy was assigned to Backslash articles! Why is he posting new news (twice today and we've had no backslashes!)? Hopefully he'll be able to summarize the interesting commentary that will no doubt ensue in an upcoming Backslash.
    • While I agree with the parent in that you would be foolish not to do a clean install, it does seem backwards that someone who paid more for XP pro has to lose all their files while XP home users do not. It doesn't sound like a technical limitation at all.
      • They probably figure anyone who bought Pro last time for their home computer would shell out for the shiny version next time around, cause "Pro -> Home" isn't an upgrade, oh no.

        Well, they've got to make up some of their profit shortfall from the Euro fine...
        • If you do a clean install of Vista, all of your old programs and documents will be in c:\windows.old (or c:\windows.old.000, etc, if you do another clean install of Vista on top of itself). That directory will have your old Documents and Settings, Program Files, and Windows directories.

          If your programs don't require anything outside of their program directory, they'll run just fine from windows.old. So even if you choose to do something strange like Pro -> Home, you could always copy things back and run

          • If your programs don't require anything outside of their program directory, they'll run just fine from windows.old.

            True, BUT how many 3rd-party Windows programs do this? And I thought it was 'poor form' for a program to write ANY data to the Program Files folder or subfolders once installed? That's what Documents and Settings is for. So, only programs who violate this 'rule' will function properly after a new clean OS install without some tinkering.

            you could always copy things back and run setup.exe for

      • it does seem backwards that someone who paid more for XP pro has to lose all their files while XP home users do not.

        Perhaps because a Pro user would know what "backup" means? Home users are at the low end of the food chain, you don't expect anything of them. A Pro user knows that an upgrade is a bad thing and will upgrade and reinstall clean.

        I've never seen an "Upgrade" of a Windows system go "cleanly". The only way to be sure is to install from scratch, or go Linux ;-)

        • Perhaps because a Pro user would know what "backup" means? Home users are at the low end of the food chain, you don't expect anything of them. A Pro user knows that an upgrade is a bad thing and will upgrade and reinstall clean.

          Not so.

          Keep in mind that the word "Professional" can have a certain connotation to it. XP "Professional" will be used by doctors, lawyers, secretaries, accountants, etc. These people are "Professionals", and will want a "Professional" OS. But if I saw any of them holding a Wind

          • doctors, lawyers, secretaries, accountants, etc.

            Now, let's just forget doctors and lawyers for a second. Secretaries and accountants live in worlds where IT is managed for them and live in a Windows Domain, which is why one uses WinXP Pro. It's the biggest difference between Pro & Home. They have no business upgrading their works PCs in the first place.

            Doctors and lawyers, may or may not live on a Windows Domain. If they do, then IT is managed for them and they have nu business upgrading.

            • The "Pro" part implies that there are qualified professionals doing they IT. It is not for "Professionals". I know it might be interpreted that way, but it really shouldn't.

              You are correct, the "Pro" part shouldn't be interpreted in that manner. The problem, though, is that it is, much as I hate it. A "Professional" buys a laptop for PERSONAL use, and what do they get? Pro. There are numerous small workgroup-style offices of accountants, doctors, lawyers, etc, all with secretaries, who don't use domains

        • No. Incorrect.

          Many people incorrectly assume that Pro is "better" than home. There are if I remember correctly three differences. Encrypted file system, the ability to host a remote desktop session, and the ability to join a windows domain controller.

          I sell PCs to consumers, and I get people almost daily who want pro because it's "better". I ask them what they're using their PC for, explain what they get with Pro over Home, then tell them the pricing difference. Most people stick with Home unless a sch

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:38PM (#15819175)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • You meanthat I can dodge BSODs?

      No, when you're ready you won't hav...err...yes, you'll dodge BSODs.

    • Re:Matrix, eh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by smaerd ( 954708 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @03:00PM (#15819400)
      Do not try to install the new file system. That is impossible. Only try to understand the truth.
      What's the truth?
      There is no new file system.

    • déjà vu (Score:5, Funny)

      by neonprimetime ( 528653 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @03:18PM (#15819570)
      Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.
      [Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
      Trinity: What did you just say?
      Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
      Trinity: What did you see?
      Cypher: What happened?
      Neo: I had this operating system, and then another that looked just like it.
      Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same OS?
      Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
      Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
      Neo: What is it?
      Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
      Neo: What did they change?
      Trinity: More OS versions.
    • Those last two movies sucked hard. I think I'll try Jobs instead (and probably keep booting into my existing XP until I get bored of the games I haven't finished yet.

  • Unless (Score:3)

    by 0racle ( 667029 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:42PM (#15819213)
    Unless I can upgrade my XP Pro to an Ultimate Xtreem OMG edition I don't care.
    • Unless I can upgrade my XP Pro to an Ultimate Xtreem OMG edition I don't care.

      That will still leave you missing costly<<<<<<, er essential features in the OMB Ponies edition.

  • I am accursed of god (or microsoft) (Score:4, Interesting)

    by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:43PM (#15819222) Homepage Journal
    I thought it would be NEAT to put XP64 on my newest workstation

    I have since decided it was a mistake

    I was sOOOOoo looking forward to escaping this bastardized ostracized (did I mention I also owned a ME laptop at onew point) dark stepchild OS of microsofts by upping it to vista...

    now apparently, I can't even do that
    • XP Pro, XP Pro x64 and Windows 2000 users will still be able to purchase the "upgrade edition" of any version of Vista. They just won't be able to upgrade with their existing files and settings in place.

      If they can't keep their files and settings, in what sense is it an upgrade? Price?
    • I've played around with 64bit Windows a few times and, remarkably enough, it suffers from all the same problems that Linux does! No decent driver support! The bulk of the driver support is for 32 bit Windows. As a result you get a pretty awful experience. 64 bit Windows takes away arguably the strongest advantage Windows has - everything just works.

      Linux makes up for it, because while you have to wade through lines and lines of obscure config files and things, if you're Linus Torvalds you can possibly g
  • No Gentoo upgrade path? :-)

    Tom

  • Upgrade Matrix Is Flawed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Doomedsnowball ( 921841 ) <doomedsnowballs@yahoo.com> on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:45PM (#15819241)
    I see they "conveniently" left out the boxes where you upgrade to linux instead.

  • More Money for us! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kranfer ( 620510 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:45PM (#15819242) Homepage Journal
    This Matrix also seems to say that if you spent the extra money in the past for the professional software you MUST pay more again in the future. I don't like that.
    • Most compaines won't let you "downgrade" during a revision cycle. The business version will probably have the same extras that XP Pro has, and Home did not. Its for business, it costs more. Get over it - at least its deductible (if, of course, you're a business).

    • Re:More Money for us! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Keith Russell ( 4440 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @03:10PM (#15819492) Journal

      RTFA after the chart. You can still pay the upgrade price for a "downgraded" version of Vista. You just won't get the option to upgrade in-place, and will be forced to make a clean install.

      No great loss, if you ask me. (Which you didn't, but this is Slashdot.) In my experience, clean installs just work better, and the time you spend post-install is a sunk cost. You're either re-installing and transferring things to the clean install, or fixing what got broke by the in-place upgrade. Just choose the option that's better for your blood pressure.

      • clean installs just work better

        Then my several years old debian unstable installation should be unusable by now: a desktop moderately loaded with packages downloads 100 mb upgrades weekly (and packages are decompressed so i must have surely replaced more than 10Gb of stuff). Sure i got problems of configuration, sometimes. But no stability issues. If I reinstalled from scratch today, all I'd gain is a couple less warnings on boot, maybe.

        However, in principle and especially on MS stuff parent is 100% rig

      • I'd never do an in-place out of choice, but there are times where you stumble across an older workstation during a larger project and time doesn't permit a clean install, or, you have some client who has "lost" install discs, licensing or other important info about an installed application yet has some critical need to upgrade to a newer Windows version.

        Usually, though, it's the latter.

  • Can't find my version (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I have XP-Pirated. To which Vista version should I upgrade?

  • Huh (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Rorian ( 88503 )
    Anyone see the Ubuntu -> Vista upgrade path?

  • Smash my Vista? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I, for one, will be camping out Best Buy the night before to get my copy.

    • Re:Smash my Vista? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I, for one, will be camping out at the Pirate Bay a week before it is released to get my copy.

  • Okay ... but what's the difference? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by powerlord ( 28156 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @02:56PM (#15819358) Journal
    Okay, I'm a geek and work in technology. I run WinXP Pro since I have a Domain at home (Samba 3), and it lets me play games and do work (yes, I also have another 2 machines runing Linux, and an OS X machine, its your typical 'mixed' development environment).

    I see that they I can buy any upgrade copy and do a clean install (and if I upgraded I would go this route regardless), but has MS published anywhere what the differences between the different 'products' (and I use the term loosely), are?

    With XP Home/Pro there were obvious descriptions of what parts were missing/added (depending on your point of view).

    I haven't seen that (or don't remember seeing that), for the various flavours of Vista yet.

  • Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)

    by squizzz ( 925033 )
    Does it have something to do with this [google.com]?
  • The "no hassle" (meaning, you don't have to worry if your old OS and the new one match up) is to get the (most expensive) Ultimate edition. I find that mildly interesting.
    • That's because Ultimate is the only one that isn't missing features from any of the XP releases - it's got all the Domain networking and IIS stuff from XP Pro, plus all the PVR stuff from Media Centre Edition.

      The other Vista versions are all missing one or the other, and so you can only do an 'in-place' upgrade where this doesn't strip features that you might be using.
  • Why not do clean installs? It is messy when doing OS upgrades. I know, they can save time to keep installed software and stuff. However, it can show problems not seen with clean installs.
    • Because with windows, it's impossible to keep your settings (which are in the registry) and do a clean install. If they used a more sane unix type thing where all your settings are in /etc and /home, then it would be much easier to do a fresh install, without losing all your settings.
      • Mate, I'm a system administrator, 20 years supporting UNIX and DOS and Windows, and I take an install as an opportunity to clean out all the cruft. A clean reinstall, even of the same version, is a performance booster.

        Of course the only things I keep on Windows are games... all the important stuff is on UNIX and Mac OS X, both of which maintain preferences in regular files.
  • Didn't even know anyone still cared about 16-bit windows...

  • Heh... (Score:3, Funny)

    by teflaime ( 738532 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @04:42PM (#15820358)
    I'm not upgrading to Vista until World of Warcraft REQUIRES it.

  • Thanks (Score:5, Funny)

    by CtrlPhreak ( 226872 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @05:00PM (#15820518) Homepage
    Now I know when I goto pirate the new latest version of windows I know which version to download to upgrade my XP Pro installation, Vista Ultimate. Yeah nothing to see here.

  • not a technical reason (Score:4, Informative)

    by will_die ( 586523 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @05:42PM (#15820832) Homepage
    Looking at the chart seems to indicate that it is not a technical reason for some of the in-place upgades.
    XP MC is XP Pro, with some features such as domain join turned off, and with a a pre-loader for the large screen and some visual changes, and then the MSC sofware added on. If you go and install MSE the first that that is installed is a regular version of XP Pro. If you have software that installs on pro but not home it will install on MCE, if the turned off features are not needed.
    So for all purposes MCE is XP pro with marketing for the home.
    However in the table MCE is in-place upgradable to home premium and ultimate and XP Pro is upgradeable to business and ultimate.
    So based on all above there is no reason XP Pro could not be in-place upgraded in Home Premium and MCE to business, the only reason would be that users would loose capabilties that thier previous versions had if they went that route.

  • HD space. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by marcovje ( 205102 ) on Monday July 31, 2006 @05:43PM (#15820841)

    I ran the check tool from microsoft, and the machine passed all test except for the HD test.

    It seems it requires all required space to be already _free_ on the machine (so that increases the requirement with the size of your current installation), and on the primary partition.

  • From TFA, and essentially its thesis: "If you're confused, you probably won't be the only one."

    It just doesn't seem that confusing (sorry if that makes the article less exciting). Here:

    Vista w/out Media Center w/ Media Center
    Home Versions: Home Basic Home Premium w/out Tablet PC
    Pro Versions: Business Ultimate
    • Technically, XP MCE is based off Pro, but the Domain and IIS stuff is deliberately broken during the install process. Your matrix is essentially correct in terms of features, rather than architecture - you can't do an in-place upgrade to a version that has Domain networking (rather than just workgroups) to one that doesn't support it, in case it's in use and breaks things; similarly it won't let you upgrade the Media Centre to one without that feature.
  • The real reason XP 64 can't upgrade to Vista is because of DRM.

    Vista 64 requires all drivers to be signed in order to load, no matter how much privilege you have or even if you own the computer. Microsoft says that this is to prevent rootkits, but that is total BS: a rootkit can get around this stuff in many ways. The real reason is DRM, the "Secure Audio Path".

    By preventing anonymous people from writing stable kernel drivers, they're attempting to lock out DRM cracks. The easiest way to break Windows Me
    • (This is separate to be like footnotes)

      I implied that rootkit developers would still be able to make rootkits, but fake audio drivers couldn't be made. This sounds contradictory, since fake audio drivers can be made the same way as a rootkit. However, it's not technically infeasible, it's socially infeasible.

      A rootkit is typically very secretive. It is rather uncommon for the run-of-the-mill trojan to have a kernel rootkit. Almost all trojans remain in user mode. Rootkits are a tool of experts, not scr
    • "Since that's going to happen any time soon"

      should be:

      "Since that's not going to happen any time soon"

      Sorry...

      Melissa

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