Pardon, please this rant. First: thanks to the gents here who have already
answered my earlier questions.

The results of the answers are not encouraging me to calm down.
Oh well.

--The Problem: I (and how many others?) was on the Vista beta and RC1/2
program.

Near the end of the trial period I looked into purchase options.
Microsoft told me/us here:
[url]http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/preview.mspx[/url]
and elsewhere, that all that we need do was MAKE the backup while RC1 was
still viable (I did that), and then buy and install one's own preferred Vista.

ALL I was told to do was make a total back up, choose and buy a Vista version.
I opted for Home Basic.

I cannot put my old settings, files or folders into the new OS. Period.

This is wrong of Microsoft. You have locked me out from my data.
Microsoft told us to make backup before installing the clean, paid-for Vista.
They NEVER told me that my backup would be completely useless.
And furthermore, even though I'd now just like to get back to XP (which is
not so evil as this Vista-Thing), I cannot put my RC1 backup of data into an
XP install.

So I'm screwed. I paid for Vista. I can't have my data back unless I get
(am told elswhere here) Ultimate or something near that.

Phooey. If anyone has a solution short of suicide of the user, please tell.
WHAT were they thinking????

A user, typical, not savvy, reads and believes the public information of the
link above.
The link DOES not tell the user that they can't save their old data to the
new OS via disk. It only speaks of "Easy Transfer" between two computers.

I don't have two computers, anyway. I don't even have the one computer
that I had before the RC1 timeout. I have nothing. I've lost all my
data---until, it seems, I knuckle under and pay for Ultimate (or will Home
Premium do the "trick").

A rant ends. I'm spent. Please help me? There must be thousands of others
like me today, tearing their hair in regret at ever, ever leaving XP.

I have been a Windows user since 1995. You'd think I'd have learned
something about it by now. Finally I have learned. Very sorry here.



That's a boondoggle lie of gargantuan proportions.
Microsoft has ruined me by locking me out of my own computer.

This deserves a new thread. It is such an literally incredible bit of
nonsense;
ANYONE going from any of the trialware Vista to paid-version Vista would
naturally expect to be able to move their data over to the new OS via disks.

I can't believe this.

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