I'm totally Vista'ed now - Upgrading The Family to Vista February 1, '07 Comments [19] Posted in Musings | Tools Sponsored By It's official. I'm totally Vista'ed. My main machine at home was running Vista RTM the nanosecond it released, but the Wife and the TabletPC were running RC2 until yesterday. Here's some tips to make your Vista upgrade suck less, especially if you're upgrading the Whole Family. Back stuff up. Don't skip this step. Buy New Hard Drives: Upgrading to Vista is also a great opportunity to get a new Hard Drive. Go one, treat yourself. I got a 10,000RPM Raptor X and let me tell you, in the words of Atwood, the difference is not subtle. Move your C: to D: and start fresh. ReadyBoost: Buy one Apacer Handy Steno HT203 for each computer. Get the 2gig. You can find them for under $50. There's literally NO reason for you to not pop this USB stick into the back of your machine, configure it for ReadyBoost and forget about it. It makes my wife's 512megs of RAM actually tolerable. Plan what Vista SKUs you need. I got Ultimate for my main machine, Home Basic for the Wife's machine, and Business for my Tablet. You can always do an "Anywhere Upgrade" if you really made the wrong choice. If you aren't ready to pay, you can install Vista without a Product Key and use it for 120 days by extending the grace period before ponying up. Get your Drivers Ready. Everyone's releasing drivers this week. Do the work ahead of time and download the drivers you need to the USB sticks (before you use them for ReadyBoost). ATI just released their drivers today. Get PowerShell for Vista. It's out, and it's using the new Vista Installer technology - basically "Windows Update Local." This is an OS add-on, not an "extra app" and its fully supported. Think seriously about OneCare. Early betas I tested were poo, it's true, but Windows OneCare has come a long way, and you can't beat $49 total for 3 PCs. All our home PCs are running it now. If you can get a Beta User's key/link, it's $19 for 3 PCs for the next week or so. It's a shame OneCare isn't built into Vista. Get your Home Network ready for Home Server. It's going to rock. Are you upgrading or waiting? « Conditionally Serve Files Statically or ... | Blog Home | Ssshh...Secrets and Betas and NDAs, oh, ... » About Scott Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author. About Newsletter Sponsored By Hosting By