Before You Upgrade To Vista

1. Before beginning, back up
The most critical step you should take before upgrading your PC to any new OS is to backup your important data. Use Vista's Windows Easy Transfer utility or simply drag and drop your files to an external disk. It's the cheap and easy way.

2. Choose, but choose wisely
Seeking Media Center functionality when upgrading to Vista- Then remember that only the Vista Home Premium and Ulti­mate versions carry the feature. Home Basic. Business, and Enterprise editions of Vista do not.

3. Check your hardware
Before upgrading to Windows Vista know that your computer must have a DVD drive installed. Windows Vista does rite common CD after all.

4. Add more memory
Although you may have gotten by on 512MB of RAM in your Windows XP machine. 1GB is the realistic minimum for Windows Vista. Ideally, consider run­ning Windows Vista with 2GB of memory installed for more efficient performance.

5. Find the latest drivers
After upgrading your PC to Windows Vista, be sure to run Windows Update, which can provide critical security updates to protect your system. It will also apply updated drivers for your installed hardware. But visit the manufacturer's Web sites, too. which often post new drivers before Microsoft verifies them.

6. Solve problems with new BIOS
Upgrading to a newer CPU? Check and run the latest BIOS for your motherboard first. This may help you avoid any compatibility bottlenecks.

7. Graphics cards: Mad with power
When upgrading your video hardware for higher performance, always check the power requirements. Multiple-GPU configurations like Crossfire and SLI (as well as graphic boards that have multiple CPUs) require a significant amount of power. It's almost a certainty that you'll need to upgrade your power supply too.

8. Antivirus apps trump installers
When upgrading lo Windows Vista, be sure to disable any antivirus software running on the machine. Forgetting to do so can cause the antivirus software to conflict with the installation and can result in sys­tem pauses or a complete system hang.

9. Convert IDE to SATA
You've decided to upgrade your mother­board but find that it doesn't have enough IDE ports to support your old drives—a common problem, actually. Fret not. IDE-to-SATA adapters are readily available.

10. Brace for trouble
Prepare yourself.. much of your software may not operate under Vista without upgrading. Run the Application Compati­bility Toolkit (ACT) found in the download center on Microsoft's Website. It'll point you lo any upgrades you may need.

11. Speed USB transfers
Is that flashy new external USB hard drive taking longer than expected to migrate your data? Ditch that ancient USB LI tech­nology on your XP machine by upgrading to a USB 2.0 card. They're available today for under $20.

12. Check your hardware
Before upgrading your aging Windows XP PC to run Windows Vista, be sure to down­load and run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. It can help you determine which version of Vista best suits your needs, or if your Windows Vista PC is ready for a more powerful version of Vista Note that the Upgrade Advisor works only with XP and Vista systems.
Courtesy : PCWorld

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Install Windows By Booting From A USB...!!!(PART 2 for NTFS)

Thanks for the response I recieved through comments and mails for the Part 1 of my install Windows from a Pendrive.Few of my site's visitors were not able to access their harddisk drives in the dos mode because they used a NTFS file system.The boot disk I provided did not support NTFS filesystem.So am going to solve that problem here.
I will make it as simple as possible.The tools needed are:
1.NTFS floppy setup or NTFS4DOS
2.Win XP setup files(The I386 folder is enough).
All you have to do is to insert the pendrive in the USB port and run the NTFS floppy setup utility.Choose your empty pendrive and click start.This will create the bootable pendrive.
Now copy the I386 from the Windows setup that you have.Restart the system by setting the boot priority to USB.the system boots to the DOS mode.Now you will be able to access other drives too because it is a NTFS boot disk.Now enter the USB drive and copy the setup files to your harddisk.for that use the command
copy [sourcePath] [destinationPath]
Where the source path is the setup files in your USB and the destination path is your harddisk.Now run the setup from the copied setup files in your harddisk,say c drive.To run setup type,
a:\>c:
c:\>cd I386
c:\I386>winnt
Thats it.You are done.The setup starts.

p.s.This post is in response to the user(Nicky) comment in my part one .Thanks folk.

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Install Windows from a Pen Drive...!!!

Here is a way to install windows XP by booting from a USB.I had to find this out because, My friend came with a problem that his existing OS got corrupt and his CD-Rom had failed.So i thought of searching for a way to solve this issue and came out with an idea of installing by booting from a pendrive.I had to search for a long time to find an answer to make the USB boot.I don't want anyone else to break up their head as i did to find the solution.So I am publishing here what i did.
You need to download two files for this process:
1.HpUSBformat(2MB)
2.Dos Files(less than a MB)
Extract the dos files(solution.rar) to c:\dos.now run the HpUSB format utility to format the pendrive and make it bootable.Run the Hp USB utility.select the USB drive(usually it selects automatically).select the check box create a dos startup disk and check "using DOS system files located at and select the target location where you extracted the DOS files.your utility should look like this.

Click start.
Now copy the other files in your extracted DOS files folder to the pendrive.your USB should look like this.


Now copy the setup files from the Win XP setup CD or from your hard disk.Thats it .Your bootable Win XP USB setup is ready.
In the bios ,set boot priority for the USB as first and perform the boot.the cursor will stop with a drive.Type nc and hit enter. Norton Commander will open.This will copy all files from pendrive to disk C.
[Note: You can also install directly from the pen drive by typing "cd I386" and then running "winnt" instead entering the norton commander].
Remove Your pendrive and reboot your system.The system will enter the windows setup wizard.Then the usual routine as installing from a CD.You are done..!!!

Check the new part two also Install Windows By Booting From A USB...!!!(PART 2 for NTFS)

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