Knowledge Base

You cannot upgrade certain language versions of Windows XP to Windows Vista

Article ID: 932856

Article Last Modified on 3/15/2007

APPLIES TO

Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit edition
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition
Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit edition
Windows Vista Starter

INTRODUCTION

This article describes the versions of Microsoft Windows XP that you cannot upgrade to Windows Vista because of language pack issues between the two products. This article also describes how to perform a custom installation of Windows Vista to work around this issue.

MORE INFORMATION

Overview

Windows Vista is available in 36 languages. This includes 11 languages that are available in Windows XP only if you use a Windows XP Language Interface Pack. However, you cannot upgrade a Windows XP-based computer that is running one of these packs to a version of Windows Vista that uses one of the new languages. If you try to do this, the Upgrade option is not available. Instead, you must perform a custom installation of Windows Vista or a clean installation of Windows Vista.

This issue occurs if the operating system language in Windows XP does not match the language of the version of Windows Vista that you install. This issue affects the following language versions of Windows XP:

Bulgarian
Croatian
Estonian
Latvian
Lithuanian
Romanian
Serbian-Latin
Slovak
Slovenian
Thai
Ukrainian

Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition uses Windows XP Multilingual User Interface Pack (MUI) language packs to support a subset of languages. When you install Windows Vista on a computer that is running Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and a language pack, you cannot upgrade the computer to a version of Windows Vista that uses a non-English language. In this scenario, to install a version of Windows Vista that uses a non-English language, you must perform a custom Windows Vista installation or a clean Windows Vista installation. This issue affects the following language versions of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition:

Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
Hungarian
Italian
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese (Brazil)
Portuguese (Portugal)
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish.

Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2 supports additional languages. However, you cannot upgrade Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2 to the matching language version of Windows Vista. This issue occurs because the computer runs the English version of Windows Media Center Edition 2005 together with a language pack that provides localized strings. The operating system is in English even though the computer is running a localized language such as Spanish. Because the operating system is in English, you cannot upgrade to a non-English version of Windows Vista. This issue affects the following language versions of Windows Media Center Edition 2005:

Traditional Chinese
Czech
Danish
Finnish
Norwegian (Bokmål)
Polish
Portuguese (Portugal)
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish

This issue does not affect the following language versions of Windows Media Center Edition 2005:

Japanese
German
French
Italian
Dutch
Korean
Simplified Chinese

If you run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool before you install Windows Vista, the tool notifies you if a language-related issue affects an upgrade to Windows Vista. For more information about how to obtain the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor tool, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx

Custom installation information

Although you may be unable to upgrade the computer to Windows Vista, you can perform a custom installation of Windows Vista. A custom installation helps preserve the data files from an earlier installation of Windows XP. Consider the following limitations when you perform a custom installation of Windows Vista:

You must reinstall all the programs after you install Windows Vista.
You cannot preserve Windows XP settings, such as Windows Media Center recording settings. In this scenario, you must reconfigure Windows Vista. This includes setting up Windows Media Center.
You must move personal files to an appropriate location in Windows Vista.
Windows Easy Transfer is unavailable. Windows Easy Transfer does not let you transfer files and settings between computers if a language difference exists.

Note Although this article describes how to manually restore personal files after you perform a custom installation of Windows Vista, you can also use a third-party backup program to back up the files from Windows XP and then restore them to Windows Vista. Before you do this, we recommend that you make sure that the backup program is compatible with Windows Vista. Also, we recommend that you become familiar with the process to back up and restore files. If you decide to use a third-party backup program to preserve personal files, you may want to also follow the steps in this article to create a second backup copy of the files.

Install Windows Vista

To perform a custom installation of Windows Vista, follow these steps:

Insert the Windows Vista DVD, and then click Install now.
Follow the steps in the installation program until you reach the Which type of installation do you want page. Notice that Upgrade is unavailable.
Click Custom (advanced), click the partition on which you want to install Windows Vista, and then click Next.
When you receive a message that states that the partition contains files from an earlier Windows installation and that these files will be moved to a folder that is named Windows.old, click Next. Then, follow the remaining steps to install Windows Vista.

Locate personal files

The Windows Vista installation program creates the Windows.old folder to store files from the Windows XP installation. To locate the Windows.old folder in Windows Vista, click Start, type drive:\windows.old in the Start Search box, and then click Windows.old in the Programs list.

If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or click Continue.

You must move personal files from their former folders to the corresponding folders in Windows Vista.

Important We recommend that you do not delete any files or folders until you verify that all the personal files have been successfully restored to Windows Vista.

For more information about how to restore your personal files to Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

932912 How to restore your personal files after you perform a custom installation of Windows Vista

Keywords: kbinfo kbexpertisebeginner kbhowto KB932856

Microsoft KB Archive/932856

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