If I WERE to upgrade XP to Vista today.......

[spilok 1,132]

1. Would I have to delete FSX and start over again?2. Would I have to save anything to a separate hard disk (which I have)?3. Would my Microsoft Office 2003 with Outlook (my mail program)make the transition without difficulty?4. I have an Epson 340 Printer and a Canon Canoscan 4210 scanner. I'm assuming these "typical" peripherals would work well with VISTA.5. My current system is below on my signature line....Ultimate Vista is the way I'm relatively sure I can go! Right?Of course, I do not expect "answers written in stone", because I will have to visit peripheral sites to look for drivers. However, I'm getting encouraged by some of the posts on this forum that Vista is working pretty well with FSX, and NVIDIA has upgraded their drivers to work with my Video cards and Vista.Usually, I'm the kind of guy who moves to new products on the very day they're introduced, and (knock on wood!)I haven't been burned in any significant way so far. I'm surprised that I'm still running XP Media Center (came with my new Dell) so long after the Vista debut.I'm getting "itchy" now, and before I build FSX up anymore with planes, scenery, and other addons, I thought that I'd better make the switch...because I will eventually anyway.Microsoft's announcement of the upcoming patch specifically says it will work well with Vista as well as XP. That was another reason I decided to ask my fellow forum memebers for their input. I look forward to reading your thoughts.

[W2DR 1,859]

Here's my word(s) of wisdom...never ,ever, upgrade an existing OS installation. Without a clean install you may never have things right. But...if you really want to risk it, you can get most of the needed information by running the Vista upgrade advisor available here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/...adeadvisor.mspxDoug

[Guest firehawk44]

As Doug suggested, the upgrade advisor should answer all your questions. In addition, Microsoft just released a new program called "Virtual PC" whereas you can emulate XP for some software programs. From my understanding, this software allows you to create virtual machines within Vista, each with their own OS and settings so that you can run your old software/hardware programs that may not be compatible with Vista. More info can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en.Best regards,Jim

[spilok 1,132]

Thanks, guys.I ran the advisor and it says I'm completely compatible for Vista Ultimate. I've already created a folder on my hard drive that contains the Vista drivers for the Epson printer, the Canon Scanner, and the X-Fi Creative Sound Card.I imagine there'll be some glitches of drivers I still have to get, but overall, it doesn't look too risky.Most importantly....do you think my OUTLOOK will remain intact with my current email (2003 edition) and my Favorites carried over?That's my biggest concern.

[soaring_penguin 428]

I had Windows XP running before I installed Vista.Because I have 2 hard drives, I installed Vista on the second. It did a clean install (but did not format the drive) and made a boot menu, so I can go anytime back to XP if needed. I recommend everyone to do the same.You can get the same result if you make a second partition on your hard drive (e.g. with Partition Magic). Vista comes with a partitioner, but I don't know how good that one is, and I don't remember if you can repartition your hard drive during setup. You have 500 GB, I assume you have enough space to do this.Now my experience with my FS X intallation : I went to my XP partition and tried to load FS X with fsx.exe: failure (expected, but worth a try).The solution was simple : just reinstall FS X over the old installation.For your settings, also simple : use the migration wizard that comes with your Vista CD to move all your settings over from the old OS to the new. Everything should stay the same.You will have to activate FS X again. It will consider this as a new install on a different PC, so it is possible you need to call Microsoft to reactivate again (if you already installed on 2 different PCs before). I have a similar system to yours, you should be fine, only difference is that I have a 8800GTS. One word of caution about drivers and support :Soundblaster X-FI card : I hope you don't have X-FI xtreme Audio, because I don't get surround working (yet). I can only hope Creative will come with proper drivers soon. Also TrackIR has no official support for Vista at this moment.And SST (programming software) for Saitek products is not working yet, but they do have drivers.Also on the driver section, NVIDIA released new beta drivers yesterday, they are faster (I use FEAR to benchmark them), but buggier (the screen will go blank from time to time because Vista has to restart the video engine, but this would have meant a crash for XP).As in another post was discussed, no need to rush out to get Vista to replace Windows XP at this moment. Some are happy (I am), others are disappointed. Personally, I like when power users make the switch early in the game, so support for the OS will grow steadily.Hope this helps, Jan

[Guest Kev_Is_Soaked]

I upgraded to Ultimate from XP Pro. Here's my own experience.I performed an 'in-place' upgrade. Usually I prefer a complete wipe and reinstall, however Vista sports a much nicer upgrade system than ever before, so I wanted to see how 'clean' an upgrade would be. (Turns out, Vista did an awesome job of NOT copying over registry bloat from old programs and missing references etc.... was quite nicely done in my opinion.)Anyways, yeah, I upgraded XP and everything worked. FSX, Outlook both worked well. It is always a good idea to back up your email before doing it though, but mine went off without a hitch.FSX did not need reactivation after performing an 'in-place' upgrade.SST programming interface for my Saitek is working just fine under Vista. I had problems installing it during my Vista RC1 tests, but it did work. During my recent upgrade to Ultimate Retail, the already installed SST on XP came through and continued working after Vista loaded.I have an Audigy 2 ZS and have noted that the sound drivers suck. Quality is there, but they have lost most of the functionality of the old XP drivers.Download the latest BETA drivers from NVidia. The latest certified drivers suck.If you have any issues installing any software, first disable UAC, then check out the Compatibility tab for the software your trying :)If you do get Ultimate, be sure to download and check out DreamScene :)

[Geofa 108]

Stan-read this too-the most useful information around.Once I got it running like I like I would never go back!http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...d=388540&page=2http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Guest Buck Bolduc]

Jan,Partition Magic won't work with SATA hard drives, at least ver.8 that i have.I dual boot with Vista/XP. You can run fs9/FSX from Vista after it's installed even if it's still on an XP partition. Some have reported crossover problems. You will see FS9 and FSX in the game window of Vista, along with Hearts, Hold-em Poker etc., once you access the sim's from/with Vista.When you access fs9/FSX on your XP partition using Vista it does not want to import saved flights etc.If you do a clean install and want to reformat or resize a partition it can be done during install. If you do so, it will insist on drivers (like XP's F6), you will find that Vista chipset drivers will not work, at least with NVidia chipsets. I found the same floppy's you used with XP/F6 install switch for XP work fine.Update to Vista drivers after install.

[Guest Buck Bolduc]

>As Doug suggested, the upgrade advisor should answer all your>questions. In addition, Microsoft just released a new program>called "Virtual PC" whereas you can emulate XP for some>software programs. From my understanding, this software>allows you to create virtual machines within Vista, each with>their own OS and settings so that you can run your old>software/hardware programs that may not be compatible with>Vista. More info can be found here: >http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...&displaylang=en.>>Best regards,>JimJim. I simply installed Vista and launched both fs9 and FSX from it.Vista placed icons on the Vista desktop, runs fine from Vista.You had better have a 8800GTX or you frames will suffer, even with a clean FSX install on Vista. This is according to "Tabs" on PMDG's site.After a few day's fooling with Vista I found myself in Vista's game window to see if I could see Pinball in it. I noticed an icon of the metal box that fs9 was sold in.

[Guest kilotango]

Well, i'm the kind of guy who don't upgrade anything in a hurry, that works perfect (XP). I've seen a lot of HW problems out there with vista, exp with flightsims, and my "background" tells me to wait a few months.I can affort that, as long as i don't spend my money on any other "upgrades".But, good luck to you.

[soaring_penguin 428]

Ok, I don't know about Partition Magic and SATA, I did not need it as I have 2 hard drives.I did just as you said, FSX still on the XP drive, but I had to install over my current FSX installation and activate again. Maybe the problem is I came from XP 32 bit and installed Vista 64 bit.But except for the reinstall, everything went smooth. No problems with cross over here. I don't have FS9 installed on this machine.There should be drivers for the nvidia chipset for Vista on Nvidias website. You can even install them on an USB key (or that is what I read) and use them during install. But if the XP drivers work, no problem I guess. Again, I have no experience because I have 2 harddrives.EditQuestion for Key is soaked : how the heck did you get SST working ?On the Saitek forums everyone is complaining that they do not work.Yes, they install, but I can not select or create a profile anymore. That makes them useless for me.Also I have to disagree about the geforce drivers, I just uninstalled the latest beta drivers and went back to the certified drivers. And my problems are gone. I guess this is one of those "try and see if it works for you".Jan

[spilok 1,132]

Thanks, Geofa.I will read that, and I do trust what you say.

[Guest Kev_Is_Soaked]

Agreed, the NV drivers seem to be touch and go, probably depends on how much snow is on your driveway or something like that.One thing I noticed, you went from 32bit XP to 64bit Vista, which doesn't perform an in-place upgrade. (thus having to reinstall FSX to set up all the registry information) Upgrading to the 32bit Vista would have worked methinks (least it did for moi)There was no trick to the SST software, I had it installed on XP and it worked fine after performing the upgrade. However, as mentioned, I had TONS of trouble installing it after I clean-installed Vista RC1 a few months ago.From memory though, I think uninstalling the drivers and reinstalling them using Compatibility mode and Admin rights actually solved my problem. What was happening was that SST would load up, but it kept telling me that my Profiles were corrupt when trying to apply them. Not sure whether I had to reinstall SST or not, been a while.Again tho, with a working SST system under XP and a Vista Upgrade, it carried over without modification at all and worked first time :) My guess is, most people think its an SST problem, when in fact all it was, was the actual HID drivers that you install separately from SST.

[Guest Kev_Is_Soaked]

DOH!Okay, let me update :)I had it working just fine after a traumatic install when I clean-installed Vista RC1. I was able to create/modify profiles.Going from a working SST in XP and performing an upgrade to Vista preserves the functionality of the software within games, however, I JUST noticed that starting SST's profile editor WILL fail.The error indicates that its looking for a Direct3D component that isn't included with Vista. I am wondering if installing DX9c would solve this... perhaps I will try later. (I know that DX9c can be installed on Vista somehow, I read a post about it last night.)

[Guest Ihor]

two files you need to back upfsx.cfg in the Users|AppDataMicrosoftFSXandstandard.xmlthese are the two files that changed after my Vista upgradealso FSX prompted for re activation.Ihor