64bit vista home premium on a desktop -> 64 bit Win7 home premium
32bit vista ultimate on laptop -> 64bit home premium
I decided to get the family 3 pack of upgrades for 150$ which is a good deal, even if I only ever do 2 upgrades. I have another Vista box which is currently running linux, so you never know.
I had both machines checkpointed by Norton Ghost 12 (more on Ghost later, if you don't use this software you should be) and was ready to roll. First up the laptop.
Ok - I whip out the 64bit disk and run setup and it tells me that I'm not allowed to update a 32bit OS w/ a 64bit OS. After a moments thought, this seemed like a reasonable constraint, I am a little bummed out because I believe that the 64bit OS provides better performance; but I swap in the 32 bit disk and try again. I get past the 32 bit boundary and wouldn't you know it, you cannot down grade from Ultimate to Premium in place - sorry, did I understand that? I cannot down grade to Premium. What's that some kind of penalty for not wanting to spend an extra $100+ to upgrade to Ultimate for features I will never use? Now this is starting to feel like a regular Microsoft deal...
So back to the 64 bit disk and a clean install keeping my old files (this is a nice option, puts all the old stuff in a directory called Windows.old, so you can move it all back into the new Windows and User directories. But, I'm still pissed as now I need to get the 20 or so install packages needed to get this machine up and going again. 2 hours later, I've installed Emacs (always first install for me) and I've got 19 to go. Painful yes, but no real issues installing. I had to find a few drivers - most notably the Video and sound drivers on line but otherwise the laptop works great and it is much faster user experience wise.
Feeling a bit chuff from my first upgrade I turn to the desktop, this was to be an even easier upgrade as I was going 64bit Vista Premium to 64bit Win7 Premium, what could go wrong?
There was a slight wrinkle - I was going to clone the current 500Gb disk to a 1.5Tb disk first and this turned out to be a nightmare. First attempt at cloning with the Seagate Software took 3 days, at that point I should have boxed the drive, assuming many bad sectors and gone back to Fry's, but I didn't. I set it to be the boot drive and booted it up (this actually required that I get a repair disk off the internet and fix the MBR first, but this was to be expected, the Seagate program had failed in so many ways so far, I could not expect it to boot) So, it boots, and I try to log in and... nothing cannot get any keyboards to work.
Ok, now what? I figure, the Seagate program did a shit job and I whip out Norton and clone the disk with that. I get it to boot but again, no keyboard. Hmmm.... being a clever guy, I go back to the original disk and set my password to empty and repeat the entire process, now I don't have to log in, just click my picture. I clone the disk and get the log in screen, click my pic and it starts to log in - yes!, but actually NO. The screen says "Preparing your Desktop" forever. WTF? 30m of searching later, I find a most excellent post (Norton communities - good stuff) that says try Norton checkpoint restore. Ok, what do I have to lose? The instructions are good, create a partition on new disk for the checkpoint, leave the first part of the disk empty (partition only) and while I'm trying to create the partition for the checkpoint, Norton Ghost tells me there are numerous unwritable sectors around the boot record. Some things just make you go "hmmmm...". Why is this just now showing up. So drive out of PC, back in box, me in car to Fry's return drive ask for another and... drum roll... all the boxes are open returns, and these duchebags put the damn things back on the shelf. The drives are obviously bad. So I settle for a 1Tb drive (poor baby) which has no returns on the shelf and head home, after a detour past the new Canon cameras (I left a little drool on the 5d and 7d)
So, new partition at the end of the drive, checkpoint the old drive, put in Norton Ghost 12, boot from it and - FMe - its a windows boot and it blue screens :-) now I'm really feeling the love. I jump into setup inspired and turn off the PATA disks (just a damn lucky guess) and try again. It restores and boots in about 1hr and everything just works!!! Ghost is god! You must buy this, it's the only way to update your hard drive.
64bit Disk in the machine, hit Setup on the Win7 disk and start the process and - wait for it - "We recommend you remove the following software which will cause problems..." Recommend my ass, Setup terminates and you have to remove about 10 pieces of software including ironically Northon Ghost 14. So I'm so invested, I'd run around the yard naked if asked and maybe if not.
I remove a lot of software and next time it starts the upgrade, 2hrs later I'm running Windows 7 and all is good, though it did take about a bottle of gin to keep me sane through the whole process.
PS. all the forums say you can reinstall Ghost 12 and it should work (not there yet). Also you need to get a new antivirus as you had to remove norton AV to upgrade. This is no loss, that program sucks. MS is supposed to be releasing an AV soon, or you can pick up AVG or Avast
