Windows 7 is supposed to be able to upgrade from Vista and transfer over your documents, programs, etc. It’s mainly antivirus software that’s likely necessary to uninstall and replace afterward.

If you’ve screwed up your Vista installation, however, I don’t that I’d bet on a Windows 7 upgrade to magically fix it, especially because Windows 7 itself remains in testing phases.

If it was me, I’d back up everything you need and fresh install Windows 7 RC.

Typically operating system installers give you the option to upgade the operating system, which installs over the current operating system, and preserves the rest of the hard drive.

If you have this option, you can go with that. However, what you don’t want to do is format your hard drive, this will erase all the data there. I don’t have specific experience with this installer, so make sure you pay attention while installing. If it makes you format the hard drive, you would need to backup any files on the partition that is being formatted.

Yeh unless you back them up with a flashdrive also you will have to get a vista disk too so be careful.

Short answer – Yes. Unless you have a way to access the hard drive. You could also repair Vista.