Vista Beta

If you partition or use a 2nd HD and dual boot MCE and Vista yes, your MCE installation will be fine, but you cannot run the upgrade route and install Vista over MCE and retain your installed software and files, that function is not enabled at present.

Vista in this build does allow for an Upgrade install from XP SP2 only but many who have tested it already have had mixed results, so its best to Clean Install of Vista as you should with installing any other OS to be honest, upgrades leave too many residual old files and in the case of Vista this is a whole new set of core OS files.

Did the Upgrade advisor list anything that it didnt like or that may need an updated driver after install?


If would advise tho go the dual boot way then you should be fine in having MCE on one partition or HD and Vista on another, but be warned its still an early beta and has issues still, mainly with hardware and drivers so if you dont want to have to re-install MCE then dont install it on a daily used/critical PC.


Dont know which versions they will release to the public but it will be at least a 3.2gb DL for the x86 version ISO, in which I guess they will issue keys for the Home Premium version, which fortunatly has MCE built in.

On install the Ultimate version takes up a healty 8gb-ish but it still has alot of bug reporting tools installed which wont be in the final released version as they are for feedback of bugs etc.

 

2nd HD would be an advantage but yes you would need plenty of free space on your existing HD to allow for a sizable partition and I would be aiming for 50gb, you can use partition tools like Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director to create a partition on your already used drive ( but I personally would still go with a 2nd HD to install Vista on )

Worth a read, is the Windows Vista Beta 2 Product guide
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...bf-4823-4a12-afe1-5b40b2ad3725&displaylang=en


more info here at the Vista Home Page http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

 

Files yes if you enable or make the folders you wish to see shared.

As to not installing on D: drive, you can as the installer for Vista allows you to do a custom install and pick the drive you wish to install on, once installed the boot menu will ask you at each boot which OS you want to load, MCE or Vista.

The majority of testers are dual booting Vista, I prefer to go stand alone with it as being fortunate to have 2 pcs I have that luxury.


IF you or your folks are in any doubt in installing this beta, then don't install it, unless you are prepared to do a full re-install of your PC and have every important file backed up... testing beta software and more so a full opperating system is not to be lightly taken as at this stage the Beta's are aimed at IT pros ( similar to the IE7 beta test release, which seems to have caught a few unsuspecting users out ).

 

No a previous OS or XP SP2 is not a pre-requisite to installing Vista Beta 2, as with all OSes its best to install Vista on a clean install if you upgrade from a previous OS, it IMO and to other testers feedback I have read at present works 50% of the time, upgrading from a previous OS always leaves old files from that OS still installed and as Vista is a new OS with completly different core OS files its best not to leave old legacy files from a previous OS as they will most likey cause problems.....

only thing is with an older PC, you may find that alot of driver support is not available at present, if the PC is say a 1yr or so old then you should be fine anything older it's a lottery at present ( 3rd party hardware makers are slow as usual to update HW drivers ), the upgrade advisor would give you an idea of any potential issues but as you dont have an OS on that PS, off hand I dont think the Upgrade Advisor works off a boot CD.

but then you have nothing to loose in trying the install anyway.

Do have a read of the couple of links I left earlier to the Vista home page as they have info on PC specs and some hardware requirements.