Windows 7 Upgrade Assistant Disk

hmhill17,

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If you are upgrading from Windows Vista Basic the Win 7 upgrade assistant is not valid for Win 7 users. Instead you will need to perform a manual install. Click the title below for instructions.

Windows 7 Manual Reinstall

I'm installing from Vista Business to 7 Professional using the disks that Dell sent me.  I assume the upgrade assistant disk just puts the correct drivers on the hard drive for the OS install to use.  If that's all it does, then that's acceptable.  If it's going to try to install a bunch of useless apps, I don't want it.  That's why I'm asking the question here.

I did a clean/custom install and never ran the Dell Upgrade Asst disk.  I did, however, have to manually go out at hunt down 2-3 drivers though.  Some people have said you can run the upgrade assistant disk after a clean install to find any missing drivers.  In retrospect that might have been a better route for me.  I don't think it just puts useless stuff on you computer without it prompting you - I can't say 100% though since I didn't run it.

If you are doing an upgrade installation and not a clean install, I think it's highly recommended that you run that disk first.

ETA:  Also, I didn't book to the windows disk, I booted to Vista, and then put the disk in, and selected "Custom Install".  Not sure how/if that is any different than booting to the disk.

I put in the upgrade assistant disk and it removed the Dell Wireless card utility.  Then the Windows upgrade wanted to connect to the internet and said all hell would break loose if I didn't.  I was not connected to the internet at that time due to the removal of the wireless utility so I thought let's cancel and try again.  Except nothing would run so I decided to try a system restore and start over.  At which point I start getting error update.cpp 58 when upgrade assistant tried to do the Dell Wireless uninstall over.  So I'm about to back out the system restore to see what happens when I try again.  Any thoughts for what to do when that fails?

You can skip it but I would recommend using it.  It will upgrade any Dell supplied drivers and programs that need to be upgraded.  In some cases removing them before the install and then adding them back once the windows 7 upgrade is complete.