Windoiws 7, going back to Vista is painful
RC candidates beware
Windows 7 does not uninstall automatically. While the installation says it is creating a restore point, that point is not your last operating system as in Vista or Windows XP. Microsoft is not clearly warning people when they download the free release code. None of the support sites contemplate reverting which is too optimistic.
This means if you are not happy with Windows 7 release candidate you can live with it or manually re-install your previous operating system. The last choice is time consuming and complex. All drivers will need to be installed for your computer, all programs, all data.
After 10 days with Windows 7, the bloom is off the rose. Several programs will not work. Most of them are video programs like Adobe Premier Elements, A/V 8, video editing software and video conversion software. The nVidia drivers are beta 1.1 versions.
However, I use those programs daily so I must revert to Vista 64.
I will have to back up all my programs and data. Vista will be re-installed from the Dell OEM disks. The drivers will need to be installed then updated. All the software will be re-installed and the data copied back. It will take 1-2 days.
chris mac
So Stephen,
Other then your drivers not working overall you like the operating system? will go use it once the full release is out?
captain obvious
Just a random passerby, but
everyone knows not to install a beta operating system on their main computer. Come on. Did you even check if the programs you mention were supported before you upgraded? If you just wanted to get a feel for it you could have installed it with VirtualBox or similar software.
I hope you had fun copying all your stuff and reinstalling. Hopefully you learned a valuable lesson.
Pat
…after you do all that, it would be a good idea to make an image of your partition & mbr if you ever want to “clean house” again. Most any imaging product will do such as Acronis TE or Norton Ghost, there is a free one called self image disk imager. You can partition your hard drive for a place to put your images or just burn them off to a DVD. When my stuff goes haywire from a boo-boo, all it takes is 5 minutes-yees just 5 minutes and it is if nothing ever happened. If you do it right, you can have XP/Vista/W7/Linux installed on one hard drive and the ability to boot to any OS.
Hope this helps
Damn you Bill Gates!
gmathol
Why don’t you take a complete backup from you computer with a fast and reliable software like Acronis which also recognizes external USB/Firewire drives. Just install the Acronis and create a bootable emergency disk.
After the backup and the backup verification you are sure you can go back. A 1.5 TB external harddrive USB costs about 134 USD?
But before you even install Windows 7 RC download the compatibility check programm available on Microsoft’s website. This tells you everything about your hard- and software, which might not work with Windows 7 RC.
What is the fuss all about? Restore points never worked sufficiently in Windows XP, so have a backup strategy. This isn’t rocket science, we are just running a PC appliance.
gmathol
…the virtual machine coming with the professional Windows 7 allows you to run XP and other OS parallel.
Of course you can use any other kind of VM software.
Pat
…I meant to go a little further if I may, not just for you but others as well. First of all it is Acronis TI or “true image” not TE. Second, the way I set my system up is that “C” (meaning the partition your OS is installed on) is always meant to be expendable. Never keep any data you want to keep on “C”. Partition your hard drive to allow for a data partition (using partition software) such as “D” for “data” or whatever you want (I use drives M,N,O,P as example) That way, if you have a recent image backup you can just format “C” and recover the image(5 min.)and your data never gets mixed up with the OS. Another cool idea is the use of something called BartPE which stands for “pre-installed windows environment” it is Windows running of a CD. In case you can not boot the partition due to a virus or something, you can at least start the CD and be able to copy the files on the unbootable OS. BartPE also allows for plugins such as Acronis TI. Whew! All done.
Paul
System restore won’t uninstall an operating system?
Sorry but personally I would have thought that would be common sense.
Roland
I am dissapointed in Windows 7 RC. When I first loaded it onto my computer, it worked great. It was fast and looked like a winner. Then I loaded a game called Neverwinter Nights2. The game took over 45 minitues to install and it slowed down Windows 7 RC to a snail’s pace. I tried to tell this the Microsoft, but everytime I tried to setup a name and password on their blog; the name was always in use, and I gave up. So now I will reinstall Windos XP. Good show Microsoft.
trolomatic
random passer by seeing if anyone else thought it was painful as me to go back to windows vista because windows 7 was so great. 22 years or not, I can not feel sorry for you. it clearly said on Mirosofts website to back up everything and that windows 7 RC1 will have to be completely removed upon the end of the trial. OS installs do not create restore points, never have, never will. vista creats a restore point only of the bootloader, nothing else. I’m sorry you had to find out the hard way, but I agree with paul saying it’s common sense. That said, windows 7 is amazing, and I am in love
Susan
I installed 7 rc on a virtual machine using fusion. I now have purchased a new copy of xp to use instead. if I can’t uninstall 7, do I just put the disks in for xp and install over 7? Please help
free microsoft
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