Upgrading Vista Ultimate to Win7 Home Premium?

[Merkuri]

So, I recently got a laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium on it. I spent almost all of last week using this laptop because I was staying at my parents' house, and I got to like a lot of the features of Win 7. So now I'm considering upgrading my desktop PC from Vista to Win 7.

The problem is that I have Vista Ultimate installed (which I actually got for free legally from an advertising shtick they did at my workplace) and from looking at the write-ups of Win 7 I don't think I need anything more than Win 7 Home Premium. It looks like the Win 7 Ultimate upgrade disk is about $100 more expensive than the Win 7 Home Premium upgrade disk, and I'd really rather not pay an extra $100 for features I won't use.

I know that the only way to do a "clean" upgrade (preserving all of my files and installed software) is to go from Vista Ultimate to Win 7 Ultimate, but my questions are:

1) Can I buy a Win 7 Home Premium upgrade disk and use it to upgrade my Vista Ultimate OS (knowing I will need to restore all files and software) or do I need to buy the full OS (non-upgrade) to do this?

2) Can file backups I made with the built-in Vista "Backup and restore center" be restored to a Win 7 machine?

3) Is there anything in Win 7 Ultimate I'm missing that may be worth the extra $100 to upgrade?

 

[falcarrion]

check out this site where the same question was asked.
Upgrade Vista Ultimate with windows 7 home premium...

What I read on it, is that it would do what they would call a clean install. which would cause you to reinstall programs and drivers.

hope this helps.

 

[Aus_Snow]

It looks to me as though you could go for the Premium Upgrade, and opt for the 'clean install'. But I don't know for sure.

I have Premium [64-bit] (finally hopped ship from XP) and it's actually very nice. Nothing missing, that I would need.

Perhaps, if you use a lot of XP-era software on a regular basis, Professional might be the go. But then again, I've heard you can get away with Premium, even for that. There's a comparison chart over at Microsoft.com - the W7 section, naturally. I don't see anything particularly compelling about Professional or Ultimate. Unlike Vista (ugh) where each level seemed to have something going for it (for non-corporate usage, I mean.)

Sorry, I don't know about the backup and restore bit either. . . All I did (as usual) was to backup documents, etc. to my external USB 2.0 HDD, and copy them back when W7 was up and running. I actually back things up every week, so I just did an extra one to catch a few little changes and additions.

Wish I could've been more help. . . someone else will be, I'm sure. Just getting into this post-XP world, m'self.


edit --- oops, ninja'd somewhat.

 

[Thanee]

What do those Upgrade versions do during install? Ask for the DVD from the "upgrading-from" OS?

Clean install is always the way to go, IMHO, anyways. Upgrade or not.

Bye
Thanee

 

[drothgery]

Perhaps, if you use a lot of XP-era software on a regular basis, Professional might be the go. But then again, I've heard you can get away with Premium, even for that. There's a comparison chart over at Microsoft.com - the W7 section, naturally. I don't see anything particularly compelling about Professional or Ultimate. Unlike Vista (ugh) where each level seemed to have something going for it (for non-corporate usage, I mean.)

Really, the version breakdown in Win7 is much nicer, because everything in Starter (which you'll never see except on a netbook) is in Home Basic (which you'll never see in a first-world country). Everything in Home Basic is in Home Premium. Everything in Home Premium is in Professional. And everything in Professional is in Enterprise (which you'll never see except at a big company or on MSDN or TechNet)/Ultimate.

So in Vista chosing between Business and Home Premium for a home office PC that's your primary computer is pretty tough, because Business is missing the media center stuff, but Home Premium can't join a domain and is missing some remote desktop functionality. You either have to break down and get Ultimate or live with missing features. But in Win7 you just get Professional.

 

[Thanee]

That's a definite improvement for sure.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mercule]

I did the exact "upgrade" you're talking about to my wife's computer, just before Thanksgiving. It was fairly painless, though it was a clean install. Win7 backs up your Windows directory, along with Program Files, and Users as part of the clean install. You can't run previously installed programs, but the data is still there and it's easy to drag-and-drop your old settings, including IE favorites, My Docs, etc. from the backup to the new install location.

Other than burning some manual backups, just to be sure, the whole thing took me three or four hours. I was absent for large chunks of that, though, and doing things like eating dinner, putting kids to bed, and watching TV with the wife.

Normal caveats apply, of course. You probably ought to do a manual backup, etc.