Does installing programms harm XP if i upgrade to Vista ?

When you say you want to partition your HDD is to install Vista on the second partition, right? And the programs you're talking about will be installed on Vista???  Just to be sure and give you some ideas....

Thank you for your reply .

No I just want to patition the HDD to put an image inthat part in case of any system failures . I want to upgrade same XP operating system which is on C: to Vista and I wonder if its ok for some programs like Driver Genius Pro, System Michanic 7 , Nero 7 , Apollo divx to dvd , etc which they are already installed in PC .

Many thanks

Make sure you run the Vista Upgrade Advisor BEFORE beginnng your installation of Vista.  It will point out any software on your HD which is not compatible with Vista.

 

PLEASE do  this, or you will just cause yourself a lot of trouble.

 

Donald McDaniel

First, let's define our terms, OK?

 

1) If you "Upgrade" to Vista, XP will be GONE, since Vista will overwrite it.

2) If you "Upgrade" to Vista over XP, it will keep your current userfiles intact.  This does  NOT  include the XP system files, which will be replaced by the Vista System files.

3) By "image", do you mean "an image of the HD created by a backup program"?  If so, upgrading to Vista should not harm the backup image on your backup partition, UNLESS you delete it or otherwise overwrite it.

In Windows, partition operations are carried out ONLY on the selected partitions.

 

 

As long as you have Unused Free space with which to create a backup partition, it will work just fine.  Just remember that you will need a MINIMUM of 20GB free space APART from any you plan on making into another partition to install Vista.  IN addition, Vista  SHOULD  be  installed on Drive0, Partition 1, UNLESS you are dual-booting between XP and Vista, in which case, the best way to accomplish this would be to not tamper with your XP partition, and install Vista "clean" on a secondary internal HD, in Partition1 of that disk.  This will keep the necessary XP boot files intact, and allow Vista to create a boot menu which contains both Os's.  This is  easily possible, by the way, using the Vista Express Upgrade from Dell.  Just start the installer from within XP, and choose to do a Custom installation on a secondary HD or Partition (but NOT on Disk0, Partition1, in which case it will wipe out your XP partition, UNLESS  you are NOT dualbooting between XP and Vista, and running Vista as your exclusive OS).

 

In conclusion, If you create a complete backup image of XP, nothing you have in the backup should be harmed, UNLESS you format or delete the backup partition or folder.

 

Donald McDaniel