Hey,
I have been having problems trying to upgrade my computer to vista. I’ve been trying to use the express upgrade that acer sent out for my laptop, and have been having some problems. The upgrade advisor shows no problems, but when I put the actual vista DVD in, the only option is to start with a clean install without the upgrade. The simple upgrade option is grayed out saying compatibilty checks could not be run. I really do not want to totally wipe everything like inventor remembering how long it took to install in the first place. Has anyone else had this problem?
Please help
Malholn
There have been a lot of bugs in Vista when it comes to Inventor and other programs simiar, and I would actually suggest to partition your drive, and to install Vista on the partitioned drive and than dual boot your computer so you don’t face any of those problems. You could also do this with another harddrive. These are suggestions based on comments on these forums as well as numerous others. If you want Inventor to stay and other programs that are very important that are questionable on Vista, I urge you to dual boot.
Are you booting off the disk?
I seem to remember that the upgrade option is either only available from booting off the disk, or only available from running the installer in Windows XP. I don’t remember which one it is.
But you don’t want vista anyway 
… Inventor and many other programs have problems. As Pavan suggested, a dual boot might be the solution for you. To partition your drive without formatting, check out Partition Magic (its 70 bux… but probably worth it (http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=sp&pvid=pm80)). You can either install vista on a split drive, or sell your key. It’s up to you.
Jacob
The Vista install must be started in XP in order to enable upgrade, but as other people have said, dualboot it.
although i havnt had this problem i know of a solution you should simply either get an external harddrive or a crapload of cd’s to back up your important stuff and start from scratch the other (better) option is to say screw it and get linux’s new ubantu or get a mac
I think you have the same acer laptop that i have
Acer Aspire 5102WLNi
Turion x2 TL-50
1GB DDR2 RAM
120GB Hard Drive
DVD Burner
the 120 GB hard drive is already particianed into 2 60GB hard Drives, install vista on the other hard drive and move all your files over to the new drive when your done.
Just note that if you buy a Vista *upgrade *as opposed to a full-blown copy of Vista, that it needs XP in order to perform the upgrade. And as part of the Vista’s EULA you forfeit your rights to keep running XP as soon as you upgrade, so to leave XP running on a separate partition of your hard drive would be illegal as it violates their EULA. (Plus, you’ll never be able to reinstall that copy of XP if you ever need to wipe the hard drive and start anew.) :ahh:
http://digg.com/software/Vista_upgrade_invalidates_your_XP_key
The only legal way to dual boot XP and Vista is to purchase the full-blown copy of Vista and install that on a separate hard drive partition, unless you feel like installing Vista twice to work around this annoyance.
Here is a link that will take you to a site that will teach you how to “clean boot” vista on your Windows XP computer off of a partition. It is a great and tested way for you to run Vista and XP off of a computer which currently runs both.
Although windows asks you for your upgrade key, there is a way to partition your harddisk so you do not have to even inform the computer that you have XP installed. AKA: A loophole in the system.
Pavan.
If a moderator finds this post as against the Chief Delphi Terms of Service please feel free to to delete this post and take any action against me that you feel is neccessary.
i’ve always wanted to say this to people…
as Dave Lavery put it, Lawyers find loopholes. Engineers find solutions. For which would you rather be known?
My preferred solutions would be to stick with XP on my PCs, continue using my Macs, or download Linux. 
I’ll agree completely with that.
Malhon, why do you want Vista? You’d better make sure you still have Inventor because we need you for the cardboard boat.
It’s not really a loophole. The licence for Windows specifies that if you use an upgrade licence, the copy of XP (or whatever it was) that was upgraded cannot be used any longer. It doesn’t say that you need to use Vista’s preferred method to install the software (by installing over a copy of an old version of Windows), only that you must already own such a copy, and shall discontinue using it as a condition of using Vista, and that you must complete the product activation (which indicates that the XP key has been upgraded).
That procedure is valid, provided that you also own an up-to-date XP licence.
Isn’t there something a little strange about the fact that we feel the need to disclaim our statements in this manner? That’s not a criticism of Pavan, merely an observation that there shouldn’t be any reason to fear overzealous moderation, right?
First, I assumed that SgtMillhouse owned a legitimate copy of XP so this would be legal, but I have no way of knowing therefore it could potentially breaking the rules.
Second:
Just to be sure I asked a moderator on AIM about my post and provided my evidence and he said it was a legal post. I got flamed once on CD when I first joined for posting a loophole and I asked a mod why my post got deleted and didn’t receive a clear response, so to prevent that from happening again I went to the rules and made sure as well as asked an official.
That is my reasoning for that little disclaimer.
Yes, all Autodesk programs have been having a tremendous amount of problems with Vista, and I am sure that will be a serious factor in the entire Auto, and Design industry in the upgrading of XP to Vista. Until the new version of Autodesk programs come out in early 2008, I don’t think that all of the bugs will be worked out. Just as 98 to XP had problems, XP to Vista will have problems, but slowly companies will turn over, and will eventually have a hold on near bugles Vista compatible programs. It is a new program, and I don’t think that software companies took advantage of the beta versions to establish a solid grip on what problems they were going to have, in order to fix their programs before the latest release of those programs, and now companies like Autodesk will and are going to have problems, but after that, and I sure that things will definitely get better. So for now all you can do is wait.
That’s what I find a little astonishing about this situation. Vista has been released to the public since last October, and was in public beta or release candidate states for more than a year prior to that. Considering that it was (at that point) the next Microsoft workstation-class operating system, you’d think that software makers would be keeping better track of the requirements. Almost all of the “issues” with CAD software and Vista to date have been stupid things like needing administrative access to run the program. Any developer who’s been watching Vista for any length of time knows that the move to running software as a standard user is one of the pillars of Microsoft’s security plans—hence UAC and the roadblocks to running a program with administrative rights by default. Surely they could have begun to account for that in the nearly two years since Vista was first previewed to them.
Just as an interesting point of comparison, Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 3.0 M030 (that’s an old datecode, predating Vista) works perfectly under Vista, running with standard permissions. It may be a simplistic comparison, but if PTC could get it right, why are others having such trouble?
Yes I totally agree, I myself run vista, and it is very annoying when you get really excited about drawing up something for robot, and end up not even being able to install a program to do it. It is just very frustrating.