I have bought an upgrade from a friend. What do I need to know about this transition? Will it wipe my C drive? Do I need to move any needed files from C? Why should I bother with this when XP plus third party programs seem to everything I want?
Thoughts, input, rants?
What is your current machine spec ? XP need a lot less to run well. If its more than 4 years old leaving or re-installing xp may be a better option .
On a decent machine i’d say go for it, but download and run the upgrade advisor 1st ( from microsoft.com ) - this will point out old software and hardware which may not work under W7. For example i have a web cam which is now a big microphone as there is no driver available for the camera part !
W7 is pretty bloody good. As fast as xp on my desktop !
Intel Core Duo 3GHz Service Pack 3 2GB RAM
My webcam is from about 4 months ago, so I’m figuring that’s ok.
What about this I hear that Win7 uses a different file system and will wipe my root drive completely?
Win 7 uses NTFS, which you may have used on your current drive…I’m not sure, but I think you may be also able to install Win 7 on a FAT32 drive, but you’d need to check that. Your system is certainly up to snuff speed wise…it’ll run beautifully. I’d recommend a clean install anyway, just because it tends to be a better install than an upgrade. Plus, I’m not sure that you can do an upgrade in place from XP to 7. One thing you can do, provided your hard drive is in NTFS, is dual boot XP and Windows 7…then, as you get 7 set up, slowly let XP go away…when you found you have everything installed in your Win7 installation, go ahead and get rid of XP at that time.
I ran a dual boot setup with Win XP and the Win 7 beta / release candidate for a while before the actual release. When the full version came out, I used it as an opportunity to change out my boot drive and installed fresh. No worries. (Of course, I have three internal hard drives and a 1TB external backup drive as well so I wasn’t worried about places to put my data).
Well - there is an upgrade path of sorts.
When to boot from the cd, you get a choice of a clean install which will format your hdd ( recommended ) or an in place upgrade. The second option saves your old xp install in its own folder. It then installs W7 in a new one. This allows you to access your old files at the expense of lots of wasted hdd space. Apps wont work out of this old install folder.
I’d suggest that if you want to go to W7 ( and your pc should run fine ), you use the opportunity to sort, clean and backup all your photos and documents onto DVD or an external hdd. Then go for a clean install.
This is not a Great Debate; it is a request for advice.
Off to MPSIMS.
ETA: I have reconsidered this to be a General Question.
Part of Windows 7 which you can install under Windows XP is Windows Easy Transfer. As noted above, there is no direct upgrade path from XP to W7, but W7 does make the transition process very easy. Use Windows Easy Transfer to transfer your stuff to an external drive. Then do an In Place upgrade. Don’t do a wipe and install - it’s too easy to find that there was something you forgot. Then use Windows Easy Transfer to bring back all your settings and data. Reinstall your applications. And if you find it’s not working, then you can roll back the upgrade to XP. If everything works, then, after a month or so, delete the windows.old directory.
Should you upgrade at all? If XP does all you need, then probably not. But W7 is very much nicer than XP. New software will demand W7, especially 64 bit software. You’ve currently only got 2 GB, but 64 bit W7 will allow you to use more than 4 GB, if your motherboard will support it. W7 does like a decent graphics card - one that supports DX 9.
Unless you have a development machine, why on earth would you want all the settings and data dragged into your new os ? Thats all the crap that was slowing down your xp install !
Sort through your docs / photos / vids. Back them up and start afresh.
Just to add that W7 is very forgiving with old xp software. For example I am running CS2 & Dreamweaver 8 (!) under W7 without any issues.
Bookmarks / favourites, cookies, data stored directly on your desktop, application settings, and much more.
Here’s a detailed article. You cannot upgrade from XP to 7 without doing a clean install.