What does "clean installation" of the RC mean

[Maybay]

I have a several query regarding the release candidate of a particular operating system. Does beta and release candidate have the same meaning technically? Whenever i am going to perform an installation of the RC does it mean that i have to perform the clean installation of the RC. Is it necessary. I have read somewhere that it requires a complete installation and the necessary upgrade is not possible. Do we need that complete installation even for the RC. Any of you having any idea then please do share it with me.

[Bull50]

Yes it is necessary to perform the clean installation. Otherwise you cant set it as the operating system. Well talking about your issue of the beta and the RC. Well let me tell you that there is a difference in the beta version as well as the RC version. Beta version has more bugs and complications when it is being introduced to the users. While RC is a bit advanced then the beta and you can say there will be a minimal errors before giving it to the users. So i hope that you have cleared with your queries.

[Badrunath]

Hey talking about the clean installation. Let me tell you that before going with the installation you have to do a back up of the necessary files in your system because its installation will completely erase all your window files in the system. So always do remember to keep a back up of all the necessary windows files before entering the installation.The necessary instructions for the installation can be found out in any of the Microsoft websites. So do have a look at it.

[MahaGuru]

Well you can also try with the dual booting. If you fear the loss of data in the complete installation. What you can do in the double booting is that to install the operating system in the particular part of the drive which can be used for the testing. Take an e.g of vista it gives you a utility in disk management that will allow you to partition the disk. So you can install the RC version in one of the partitions and also retain all the files. So just try with this solution and do let me know if it works for you.