Heck, I should probably switch over to Windows 7 anyway. Been a little afraid to do an in place conversion, but I’ll maybe image my drive and give it a shot.
screw vista, do a total fresh install and work through it, when it’s over you’ll have something a lot better than vista ever was, that’s how it was for me, I never have crashes and I’m constantly freezing and unfreezing. stick with popular brand plugs, after that the built in windows 7 imaging software works great so you only have to set it up once unless you replace the os drive.
Well. I need to image my Vista drive BEFORE installing Windows 7 in case something happens. I want to try an in-place update first since it’ll be a LOT easier than having to re-install 75+ programs from disk plus all the updates and re-authorizations.
if it were me I would reinstall the 75 plug ins on a fresh os install from scratch, any other way is a hack. since you can image right after you only have to do it once, it’s worth it. 7 is better than vista, if you have problems with a plug in dump it. I use a lot and had no problems with 95% of them.
In-place updates is not a hack. Especially going from Vista 64 to Windows 7 64 bit. It’ll take me a MONTH to to get back to where I was otherwise. I have better things to do with my time.
I hear ya, your reasons for not doing a fresh install are actually my reasons for doing one, such a big change should be started from scratch, because if you don’t have time to do it right the first time when will you find time to do it twice?
like I said that was my experience, I would never do it the way you describe and expect the stability that I have now, but good luck either way.
I’ve ALWAYS done in-place updates without ANY issues other than those than result from non-compatibility of certain software on the new O/S, which I would have had either way.
In any case, I’m doing it. What I’m really asking for is imaging software recommendations.