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Thread ID: 128926 2013-01-23 23:57:00 How safe is it to upgrade to Win 7 from Vista Home Premium? tuiruru (12277) Press F1
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1324669 2013-01-23 23:57:00 Hi

I've had my Toshiba laptop for about 3 yrs and it's currently Vista HP SP 2. The installation has sometimes a bit flakey, which may have caused a hangup when I logged into the BNZ site today to change some account details. I had a nice chat with their techy who recommended upgrading to Win 7 and implied that it would be virtually hassle free. I said I had a lot of extra softwre installed (like stuff from GAOD and BitDeJour, with one off serial numbers), plus would it mean installing a lot of new drivers. Again, he intimated that it would be OK.

So, how realistic an exercise is it? I don't want to shell out for an upgrade and then have to reinstall an image of the drive if it all turns to custard (there's another point - I've been using the Active software recommended by Wainutech from way back, so I guess that may be another expense!).

Any advice, especially from those that have actually done it, gratefully accepted.

Thanks 		tuiruru (12277)
1324670 2013-01-24 00:03:00 A fresh install would be better. If Vista is already flakey, then putting Windows 7 over the top wont make it any better, in fact if Vista is damaged it may only partly install W7, and then cant go back or forward. If Vista did allow W7 to install, it still wouldn't run as good as its capable.


and implied that it would be virtually hassle free It'd be a foolish person to gurantee that without problems.

Its like building a great house on shakey foundations, doesn't matter how good the house is the foundations will be the failing point.

Any current software you have could be reinstalled, all you need is either the Install CD/DVD and product keys if they had any, or downlaod the software again if its not stored someplace. 		wainuitech (129)
1324671 2013-01-25 00:39:00 Sometimes , the manufacturer will not have all the correct drivers etc for the new OS.
You may have partial functionality ,

eg F buttons may not work (for vol, screen brightness), or some piece of hardware may no longer work
as no correct driver for Win7

Downloading all the drivers & the system software for a laptop is often a real pain, some manufactures will give you a mult-choice of several possible drivers to choose from for many hardware devices (yes HP, if you dont know what hardware you stuck in your systems then who does) 		1101 (13337)
1324672 2013-01-25 02:20:00 Id (cold clone) the vista install to a USB HDD so you can run it as VM on Windows 7 once you do a fresh win7 install..... SolMiester (139)
1324673 2013-01-26 21:42:00 I don't like upgrade installs either, nice Idea but never as good as starting over.
1 Thing though regarding drivers, Vista drivers generally work ok with windows 7 so if it's working in Vista it should work with 7.

As an example I have a Dell optiplex with windows 7 on it that Dell stopped supplying drivers for shortly after Vista came out, the vista soundmax driver works perfectly on it.

Edit: Providing you stick to the same version - 32bit or 64bit of course 		dugimodo (138)
1324674 2013-01-26 22:45:00 Which model of Toshiba laptop is it?

I have a Toshiba M10 which used to run Vista, was upgraded to Win7 with no Toshiba Drivers added, I believe, except for Bluetooth and a few others.

Only issue is sometimes shuts down then restarts with the fan on full!!!!! Annoying but really no major issue, I just take the battery out. 		zqwerty (97)
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