Vista users looking to upgrade to Windows 7 when it's finally released will have the luxury of an ‘in-place upgrade', in which the new OS overwrites the old one, preserving their installed applications, preferences, and data. However, XP users aren't being given this option and will instead have to do a clean install. We look at just how complicated upgrading to Windows 7 from XP is likely to be.
When Windows 7, Microsoft's latest operating system, is released later this year or possibly at the start of next year, there will be hundreds of PC users clamouring to upgrade to the new OS. For Windows Vista users, this will be as simple as an 'in-place upgrade', in which the new OS overwrites the old one, preserving their installed applications, preferences, and data.
But the same won't be true for those currently using Windows XP. Instead, XP users will have to do a clean install, which means they have to back up their data, install Windows 7 (either deleting or XP or installing as a separate environment), reinstall their apps, restore their data and re-create their preferences.
For Windows XP users who avoided Vista because of its many problems that upgrade work may seem as adding insult to injury, making it harder for them to finally adopt a new version of Windows. Microsoft has confirmed there will be no "in-place upgrade" option for XP users, but it declines to explain why not. "More materials on your question are in the works," Microsoft said.
Why a clean-install requirement may make sense
But there may be good reason not to support an in-place upgrade, suggests Michael Silver, a Gartner analyst who follows Microsoft technologies. That's because viruses, registry errors, and other performance-sapping flaws in the user's Windows environment would be carried over into Windows 7; something that would not happen with a clean install.
Business IT typically does clean installs on user systems to avoid these issues, Silver notes, so the lack of an in-place upgrade will be a non-issue for most enterprises.
Consumers and small businesses are the ones who tend to prefer the in-place upgrade option, Silver notes, and they're the ones who may be annoyed by the clean-install requirement if coming from XP. "Microsoft is in a bit of a no-win situation here: Support the upgrade and live with whatever bad experiences users have or don't support the upgrade and make it harder for people to do it," Silver says.
"Most users will be better off doing the clean install anyway," he says, so he recommends that even Vista users avoid the in-place upgrade and proceed to the clean install.
Silver also notes that users who did not upgrade to Vista often have hardware that can't run Windows 7 or Vista (typically, PCs from 2006 or earlier), so they would likely get a new computer at the same time with Windows 7 pre-installed, which means reinstalling their apps, preferences, and data anyhow.
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NEXT PAGE: A precedent for providing in-place upgrades for earlier generations
Comments
MalcolmF said: Businesses typically only have a very few app on their computer They buy an app to do the job and a box to run it on They might have some external hardware that might need replacing at change-over time Usually their accountant can offset a proportion off against taxNot so the home user The PC is a general purpose device that does my home accounts lets me write my letters handles my photos and does plenty of peripheral jobs related to my hobbies apart from general entertainmentIf I have to reload and replace that lot to move to an operating system that I dont particularly need we are not talking MSs optimistic guess at about an hour or so to change over it can be several days Of course any apps that wont work will need to be replaced Then of course its not just the cost of the OS but all the other bits Probably several seconds worth of a MS executives time