That is what I did and it worked fine. I didn't see a need to format the hard drive. it seems like in the past i did because the reason I was re-installing Windows was because I had a virius or thins in the registry were really hosed up. The way you are planning to do it is was the same way I chose. Some people here have stated that this really isn't a clean install. I think it is in a way because you will be getting rid of all your old data. Which may include incompatible software and drivers. Plus you will find that Vista will install many suitable drivers for you. The onlyones I had to install were the touchpad drivers because my scroll wasn't working and Dell Quickset. I left the HD Audio driver tha Vista installs. The sigmatel didn't work for me so I uninstalled it.

 

Good Luck I'm sure will be fine. By the way you can also download and install the bios ahead of time from the driver download area.

Thanks for your reply: anybody else with any experiences???

 

Also, can anybody confirm that DSRFIX will work and allow me to use the restore partition to revery back to XP from XP??

 

Thanks.

I did just as you described worked fine for me.

I did a boot from the dvd, when asked I did not insert the dvd key and installed it as a thirty day trial, installed all the updated drivers checked to see that all was well, and then i activated the install by typing in the dvd key, and activated online. worked great !! On my desktop system I purchased the retail copy of vista home premium, formated the hard drive installed vista, and then did the upgrade over the existing vista trial install, and then activated. it's a little more time and trouble but it's worth it for a clean install in my opinion.