Ok, a recent virus attack pretty much made my XP installation screwy(warcraft wont detect the cd, videos won't play and many more)

I was thinking of getting the windows vista upgrade and use it to upgrade while my Xp still works,so I don't have to pay for the full version.

However, if some circumstances arrive and I ended up needing to do a clean install of Vista,(something that would prevent windows to boot for example) will I be able to do a clean install with the upgrade cd?

I heard that I can install vista with the upgrade cd without being in XP, as a 30 day trial, but when that trial runs out, would I be able to reinstall vista then?

If your wondering what happend to my windows Xp cd, my comp came with a recovery disk that only supported that mother-board, and when I changed the mother board, the recovery disk wont run)

"will I be able to do a clean install with the upgrade cd?"

Yes .... in a way ;-)

Why do they even bother with an "upgrade" version if it includes all the same files and you can still do a clean install... but you have to instal twice to do it?

What I got from that is you might as well buy the upgrade version and save some money because you can still do a clean install.. it just takes a little more time.

1. upgrading from a 'screwy' xp installation isn't exactly the right thing to do. furthermore, the idea of 'upgrading' is to discard the old version for a newer one, so legally you cannot use vista AND the xp license, you have been upgrading from.

2. you can, however, perform a clean installation from the 'upgrade' disc.

3. it is not XP that is gone 'screwy', it is your installation. you may consider re-installing XP rather than coughing up money for something that is not ideal for gaming. most of your 1GB ram will be used by the operating system. in order to get a somewhat decent performance, you must upgrade your memory too.

4. check the vista upgrade advisor for hard and software compatibility:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pr...

Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

Vista may not be as "non-ideal" for games as once thought...

http://www.driverheaven.net/article...

http://www.driverheaven.net/article...

maybe so, but look at the specs, 3.1 GHz dual core processor (overclocked to alleviate CPU limiting as much as possible) 2 GB ram and a 650 dollar vid card with 768 MB graphics memory, not some 2.2 GHz e-machine with 1 GB ram, probably onboard graphic and shared memory :-)

Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'