Should I make the upgrade?

Ok, here's the thing: I've been using this computer my family got for nearly the past 3 years (since Christmas 2006). It has Windows XP Media Center edition. A couple weeks ago I found that we actually had a Windows Vista Premium upgrade DVD for the past 2.5-maybe 3 years. What I was thinking of doing was buying an external HDD and then making the switch.. However, I have one main question: Is it really worth it? Also, are there going to be some things that aren't compatible with Vista that were on XP? (Such as playing Starcraft.) Is it hard to backup all files on my hard drive and reinstall them? What external HDD would be a good one to buy? 60GB would be plenty for me. (I found this one on Newegg, but I was not sure of the quality or if it's good...)

(Man, this would have been good to know back when I had to reformat my computer over the summer.)

Edited by Orange Milk, 04 December 2009 - 07:22 PM.

First thing would be to get the Vista Upgrade Advisor http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...de-advisor.aspx

Check that your video and TV cards have drivers for Vista.

I would upgrade, if I had the choice. But then I'm the type who enjoys tinkering.

I like XP better than Vista.

First thing would be to get the Vista Upgrade Advisor http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-v...de-advisor.aspx

Check that your video and TV cards have drivers for Vista.

I would upgrade, if I had the choice. But then I'm the type who enjoys tinkering.

Actually, the Vista upgrade thing came with 2 DVDs, one for upgrading to Vista, the other for checking drivers to see if everything is compatible (which I'm supposed to put in before the first DVD).

Hi Orange_Milk,

Have you been able to successfully transition to Windows Vista? If not, run the Upgrade Advisor first as recommended.

If you have any concerns about software compatibility, you can always check the Windows Vista Compatibility Center for information. For example, the WVCC entry for StarCraft states that a free upgrade is available from Blizzard that patches the game to run on Windows Vista.

As for deciding whether to upgrade at all, everyone on this forum should be able to help

Cheers,

Walker
Windows Outreach Team

If XP works fine, I see no reason to "upgrade" to the headache that is Vista. Besides, with a computer that old, I'll bet the specs aren't nearly enough to run the "resource hog Vista". It will likely crawl along with a fair number of crashes (had plenty of experience with that!).

If you want something new and better, just get a new computer with Windows 7 already on it. You'll love it. It might take some adjusting to (with such a leap between XP and 7), but you will definitely enjoy it. If you were going from Vista to 7, it wouldn't be as big of a leap as the interfaces of the two are very similar (but the guts of the OS is where the differences are). To put it bluntly, Windows 7 is about 1,000 times better than Vista ever thought about being.

I see why you would consider upgrading since you already have a paid-for upgrade disk, but I would not recommend it for a computer that old. Either sticking with what you've got or buying a new one (can you say "after-Christmas sales"?) seems to be your best option, in my opinion. You shouldn't put Vista on an old, slow computer. It just doesn't work.

You might consider posting your system specs to give us an idea of what you're dealing with.