I’m looking for the best way to upgrade a home PC and two laptops that will not lose any files. My sister and her husband have a desktop and a laptop running Windows XP and another laptop running Vista :smack:. They use them for keeping bookkeeping records as they’re both self-employed, for surfing the web, storing photos and in addition their kids use them all to play games, do homework and watch Youtube.
One of the laptops and the desktop both have 4Gb of RAM and might be OK to be just upgraded. The other laptop is only used sparingly. I think they should at least have all of their machines on Windows 7 as their home networking capabilities seem to have gone completely since I set it up last year. They got a virus (probably from the kids playing ‘free’ games online) and were told to reset the settings on the Vista laptop. Now none of the machines recognise each other. They have Kaspersky running on all three.
They’re debating whether to upgrade the machines (all around 6 years old) or just the software to Windows 7. Either way they cannot afford to lose any files, and are well aware this is a possibility after a local ‘expert’ (definitely not me) worked on one of their machines a while back and lost several important files. They’ve spoken of keeping a “separate storage server” but don’t really know where to start with that.
Just looking for advice or anecdotes, really. Rather than I completely guess what they should do, and be of little/no help, I’d rather be able to give some informed advice. BTW we’re in the UK if that makes any difference.
There are a whole bunch of services available to store your data files, and many work through the internet so you can simply upload whatever concerns you.
My problems in the past have been more related to executable programs. Some may have to be re-installed to be reconfigured to a newer OS, some might not work at all, especially considering they’re 6 years old or more. So I would start with that question – do they have all their original program disks or software license/registration data in order to re-install or re-download their programs? The data files, which is what most people think about (pics, documents, etc.) are trivially easy in comparison. Unless they are heavy users/hobbyists of some kind, their data can probably fit on a flash drive.
I doubt they have the original disks as they’re not well organized in that department. The files are spread out a little chaotically (in my opinion) on the Vista laptop and XP desktop, although they may see this as recognizable to their everyday, light use. My worry is they’ll ‘make do’ until they have a total failure.
How is it possible to ‘lose’ a home network, without hardware failure I assume ? Does it also imply no connection to internet?
Important data always needs to be backed up at another physical location be it offline or on a network. It’s the only way to make sure you won’t lose access to it.
Well, IMO the FIRST thing you need to do – before even beginning to think about upgrading anything – is to BACK UP ANYTHING IMPORTANT!
If nothing else, burn everything you want to save to DVDs and put them somewhere safe.
Number two thing to do is to figure out a system so that backups are made regularly in the future. Whether it’s burning DVDs once a month, or some internet backup service, or even just putting copies of important files on all three computers. But if they have data they don’t want to lose, they need to make backups or it WILL be lost eventually, whether due to a botched upgrade, an accidental deletion, or most likely a failed hard drive.
I mean, you’re right in that upgrading does increase the risk of losing data, but not upgrading doesn’t mean the data is safe.
And of course, once you have a good backup system in place, just do whatever you have to do to make a fresh backup and then upgrade with no worries.
You do need to back up but I don’t think DVD’s are the way to go. External hard drives are cheap (about $50 - $80 for a 1TB model). They are way faster, more reliable, convenient, and more reusable than DVD’s. Almost all of them come with backup software but there is plenty of good free backup software available on the web as well to download. Start with that first.
I would not put Windows 7 on a 6-year-old machine. I don’t think I’d even put it on a 4-year-old machine.
Buy two new machines with Windows 7, upgrade any and all of the business software. Transfer the files from the old machines to the new machines. Wipe and re-install XP on the old desktop and use that as a backup machine and file server.
I am a computer guy who deals with this exact scenario on a weekly basis with small businesses.
Do not upgrade those machines to 7
If they want to replace one machine at a time, fine, but verify that any software is available and compatible. If they set up all this years ago, plan on none of it working and be prepared financially to replace all software or look into other solutions.
What is their accounting software? If its quicken or quickbooks, the 6 year old versions will not run in 64 bit environments. quickbooks data files however will be readable and will upgrade to present day versions of the company files.
I think what Boyo Jim is trying to get at is that you should have a way to RE-install all programs they want to keep from scratch, on the new computers. That is, from the original CD-ROM that the software came on. (Or, if a program was purchased on-line and downloaded, from the “setup.exe” file that was first downloaded.)
What you see on the desktop is probably just a shortcut to the file on the machine that runs the program. This is NOT the installation file, and backing this up to install it on a new machine probably won’t work.
They all could access the router and the internet. But I really couldn’t connect the laptops with the desktop. I tried everything that I’d used before plus more; I tried all of the Help options; Network options; Wireless Wizard; went into the Network and Sharing Center on all machines many times; changed the Network, Home group and pc names; enabled network discovery, file sharing, printer sharing; referred online for connecting XP and Vista machines…
The desktop (connected to a printer) recognized the laptops - which ever name they had - but couldn’t drill down into their files (and came up with an error message). The laptops couldn’t see the desktop but could see the printer/scanner - as being unconnected and unavailable, even though I was using it via the desktop. I tried to use a USB with a wizard but when I put it into the laptop the date on the program was 2008?? I cut my losses before looking at the IP addresses and finding out how to get them to ping each other, 4 hours was enough at that point.
Last month I put all of my photos on Flickr, Adrive and Photobucket plus I have them already on Facebook, my laptop and an external drive. I also have lots of movies and tv series backed up, although these are replaceable. I supplied my (retired) parents with a laptop, replacement desktop and 2 external drives, plus lots of media, securing all media files so any rogue programs shouldn’t harm them and installed all of the free virus killers that are highlighted at the top of this forum. But this was inconsequential and the procedures are time-consuming, so if I’m going to take 3 machines full of business files and back them up I want to start off with a good strategy and the optimum tactics.
Sorry to rant but after losses several years ago, and seeing the precariousness of my sister’s data, I’m quite anxious about the potential for losses especially as I’m not usually around to help them. I have a short time span to secure their data and I want to make the most of it. They are comfortably uncomfortable and also too busy to really do anything at this moment, with their focus on children and work.
Assuming funds are not tight, (or, how much is their business data worth?) this is a good excuse for an upgrade whereby the kids get the old computers. Kids should not be using the adults’ computers anyway.
They should buy new PCs / laptops as required, and then they should buy a box running Windows Home Server so that everything gets backed up. Once everything has been backed up, both to the WHS and to an external USB HDD, they should install their applications on the new PCs, then use Windows Easy Transfer to transfer their data to the new PCs.
Once the adults are satisfied with the new computers, remove the HDDs from the old PCs and laptops. Store the HDDs away safely. Install new HDDs in the old computers and restore the old computers from the WHS. Delete any applications and data the children should not have.
I think their funds would be OK with this solution, but their focus is on other things right now and they haven’t experienced the total loss of a hard drive, yet. Their kids screw up their iphones as well as their computers with impunity, but the good thing is they’re open to buying new machines. They work in an engineering environment but need some specific computer information which isn’t often piped to the region where they live.
I also think they need off-site backups and should have laptops only for business. It’s tricky as their home is also their office and no one they know has used off-site storage, even though there are many self-employed people that they have contact with. They do take precautions with their data so they think they are quite safe; I’m not so sure.
The simplest off-site storage is to put an external HDD with the backups in the car. Similarly, if there are relatives they visit on a regular basis, like parents or grandparents, leave a backup with them.
That’s easily done, and a good idea :), as they have relatives (our parents) who they do meet regularly. We discussed yesterday which brand of machines and HDDs they might use and they prefer Dell or Toshiba, although I like Sony and don’t think Toshiba is as good as it was previously (from looking at people’s stories online before I purchased my Vaio).
My machine came with online back up storage software - which I deleted as I use my own (free) - but I don’t know if either is sufficiently secure for business use. When I was in the store the manager made me promise to make installation DVDS but it hasn’t needed them in 18 months of hard use, so if asked I’d say it’s a pretty good brand.
If they have the memory, what’s the problem? The processor is almost certainly good enough for Windows 7. Sure, Aero may be a problem if the GPU sucks, but Aero Basic can run on anything that can run XP.
Windows 7 is pretty dadblasted lean, in my experience. If a computer can run Vista, it almost certainly can run 7, and will run faster to boot. Heck, they are putting it on Netbooks that would previously only run Windows XP, using the same processor but higher memory.
It’s times like this that I wish Microsoft had a free trial for its OSes. The best you can do is borrow a Windows 7 disk or have someone make you a USB copy. As long as you don’t try to activate it, Microsoft won’t mind you using it for the built-in trial period. Though I would definitely try it on a separate partition.
If I were you, I’d buy one new Windows 7 computer, and try upgrading the rest, save the Windows XP laptop. With it, I agree that you should reformat and reinstall, but a laptop as a file server is not the best of ideas.
I mean, with my dad’s current Windows 7 computer, I’ve hacked it so that I can run two users at a time (one via Remote Desktop) and there’s never any slowdown, and I still don’t use the entire 3GB of RAM. And it’s a budget eMachine.
