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Due to the crap that was the Vista operating system (at least without 4 GB of ram and a few tricks up your sleeve), many people have skipped the OS altogether and stuck with XP. Many of those same people, however, are excited to try out the much vaunted Windows 7 operating system, due out tomorrow for public consumption. Windows 7 is touted to be everything that Vista was supposed to be and more, and even some die hard Windows haters have given the new OS grudgingly good reviews. However, there is one major snag in the upgrade to Windows 7 from XP: you can’t actually upgrade it. You have to do a clean install. This can cause some problems for people as they will lose all of their programs, settings, and more. To that end, here are seven quick tips to help your install be a little more smooth and butter-like.
Spot Problems Before You Start With Windows Upgrade Advisor
Microsoft offers an upgrade advisor for Windows 7 that will scan your system for programs and drivers that are not compatible with Windows 7. The list of incompatible programs is fairly small in comparison with Vista’s launch, though, so you may be pleasantly surprised. If a program comes up as incompatible, don’t set it on fire yet — it may run in compatibility mode just fine.
Buy the Upgrade Disc, Not the Full Install
Don’t be so frightened by the “You can’t upgrade from XP!!!” that you go out and buy the full install disc. If you have a legit copy of Windows, all you need is the Upgrade disc and the Custom Install button (more on that below).
If You Don’t Have One, Go Get an External Hard Drive
And if you do have one, make sure there is a fair amount of space available. Your going to need to do some backing up and that can take many, many, gigabytes. Many. You don’t want to even think about the number of DVDs you will have to burn if you don’t use a backup drive…
Do a Full Image Backup of Your Current Configuration
See? Can you already count the gigs you’ll be consuming? You need to do a full backup, just in case it all goes south. And not the good “for the winter” south, either. Make sure you compress the backup to help save space. Acronis True Image is a good bet for this process. We talked about this a bit here.
Use Windows Easy Transfer
If you want to keep your profile settings and the like, as well as key files, Windows Easy Transfer will migrate these items for you. Make sure you have Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later installed for it to work properly. And it is a good idea to move large files or groups of files (like your music folder…) to a backup drive first. Windows Easy Transfer is not known for its speediness.
Gather Program Discs and Have Setup Files Handy
This is another item that we covered in more depth in this post. Just remember that you are going to lose your programs. No help for it. So before you commit yourself, list and gather what you want to bring to your new installation. This will speed things up and help you keep what little hair your previous Windows experiences may have left you with.
Choose Custom Install, Not Upgrade!
It will be tempting to hit that Upgrade button. You will want to do it, but… you can’t. It will only give you an error, so you may as well suck it up and hit the Custom Install button. This will help you perform a clean installation of Windows 7 on your XP machine.
So, there you go! Hopefully this will help make your installation go a bit more smoothly and save you a few headaches. A couple of other notes: Have an email program handy. There is no mail program installed by default. Windows Live Mail is a decent choice for day to day use. Also, there is no need to use the format option during your install. You do not need to format your machine to do a clean install. Not usually anyway. Save yourself some time and leave the format option alone unless you are getting install errors. Happy upgrading!
Are you planning to upgrade to Windows 7? If so, did you stick with XP or succumb to the will of the Vista?
Buk says:
Why not just stay with XP! Every new version of Windows is always hyped and it seem everyone wants to upgrade. Then once the “dust” begins to settle, it seems everyone complains about the new version. With Vista it was bad enough that many people went back to XP. Why waste the money? You should already know that Windows 7 is going to be terrible until SP2 comes out to fix everything thats going to be found wrong with it.
I for one am in no hurry to give Microsoft anymore of my hard earned dollars. I’ll wait until Windows 7 is proven to be a reliable and stable OS. By then I’ll be due for a new computer anyway and if I buy something already built, it’ll come with Windows 7 installed. If I build the next one, I may just put both XP and Windows 7 as a dual boot. I don’t see why everyone is in such a hurry to jump off a cliff to get Windows 7.
October 20, 2009 — 11:32 pm
Bobby Travis says:
I respect your opinion, certainly, and with most Microsoft products, that would be a good bet. Windows 7 has been proven to be better than XP and Vista already though, even before its release. I have been running the RTM version (which is still a beta) for months on both my Vista-born laptop (64-bit) and my XP laptop (32-bit) with virtually no hiccups or problems. In fact, my XP machine barely makes the minimum requirements for Windows 7 and actually runs better than it did on XP. Unless Microsoft has done something wonky to screw it all up in the past few months since the RTM version went public, it should meet the expectations or surpass them.
This is more than just media hype — it’s a Microsoft OS that is stable on release day! How big a milestone is -that-??
October 21, 2009 — 1:43 am
Evan Kline says:
It has been hearing of experiences like yours that caused me to order the Windows 7 upgrade discs for both of my Vista machines. For now, I’m leaving my XP machines alone (one a netbook, and the other a very old desktop), since I use them for basic stuff. I imagine my discs should arrive in the next few days, but the big challenge will be finding time to do all the prep work before doing the upgrade.
October 21, 2009 — 9:06 am
Nicholas Z. Cardot says:
Thanks for the advice. I have Vista now though, so I guess it doesn’t really apply. I do want Windows 7 though so I will very likely be upgrading quite soon.
October 21, 2009 — 3:53 pm
Bobby says:
Very nice! I look forward to hearing people’s experiences with the final version. I want to see if it is in any way different from the RTM — which I’ll be keeping until the bitter, bitter end. :)
October 21, 2009 — 4:36 pm
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer says:
You forgot “Make the kids go to a friend’s house so they won’t pick up the brand new curse words you’re inventing.”
Yeah, I’ve heard that upgrading Windows can be a lot of “fun”. I’ve never experienced that pleasure, thank God …
.-= Kosmo @ The Casual Observer´s last blog ..Inequity in the BCS =-.
October 21, 2009 — 10:14 pm
Bobby says:
LOL! DO I sense a Mac fanboy in the house? :D
October 22, 2009 — 9:40 am
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer says:
:)
I support things in the MS environment at work, but when I’m at home, I use Macs.
I’m behind on upgrading those machines, too, though. The 7 year old Mac is running 10.3.9 and the 2.5 year old one is running 10.4.11. Seems to make more sense to just put the OS upgrade money toward the purchase of a new Mac at some point :)
Since I’m a systems guy in the midst of a non-systems office (I telework and report to corporate), I sometimes get asked to fix people’s home PCs. I smile and say “sure”, even though I’d rather gouge my eyes out sometimes :)
The last machine I fixed was really easy, though. It was a laptop where there cursor was repositioning itself (bouncing across the screen randomly every few minutes). I told the co-worker that I’d first do the automatic updates and then roll up my sleaves and diagnose the problem. Happily, the MS updates seem to have fixed the problem …
.-= Kosmo @ The Casual Observer´s last blog ..A Health Care Plan I Can Believe In =-.
October 22, 2009 — 12:26 pm
Bobby says:
Yeah, with a Mac, you pretty much need to save all of your pennies toward the new hardware where you can…
October 22, 2009 — 9:16 pm
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer says:
:)
Quite true … but the 7 year old machine I use for all blogging activity probably has at least another 3 years of useful life left in it.
.-= Kosmo @ The Casual Observer´s last blog ..The Plight of the Crocodile =-.
October 22, 2009 — 9:56 pm
Bobby says:
Heh, I still have the Windows machine I built some 12 years ago. Well… in spirit anyway… none of the parts are the same. :P
October 22, 2009 — 11:54 pm
Darrell says:
65% of windows users are running XP and yet they decide to not include a way to transfer your mail over to Windows 7?? Why would I buy it then?
Office 2010 does not come out till next year which should include a new outlook and mabey make the transfer easier but its seems just plain stupid to put it out without a mail program.
November 1, 2009 — 1:33 pm
Bobby says:
I hear you man. I suppose you can always upgrade to Vista and then upgrade to Windows 7… seems a bit expensive though. I did hear that Microsoft offered that to a select group — I don’t know what the criteria are to be a part of the group, however. Apparently, their reasoning is that the upgrade just won’t work smoothly so you are better off doing a clean install for stability’s sake. Either way, upgrading to a better operating system seems more than a reasonable argument for -why- you would upgrade.
As for the email program: I personally always hated the stock email program so I am glad it is gone. I am a cloud email user though, so it works for me. I go out of my way to avoid programs like Live and Thunderbird — and especially Outlook…. I am curious about Office 2010 — especially the cloud aspects of it.
November 1, 2009 — 2:13 pm
Mark says:
Im 24, just over half your audience! Some really sound advice here.
A few things to remember though.
The Windows installer will move your previous install into a directory at the root of the disk (Windows.old)
So trying to remember installed programs can be found in the program files & program files (x86) If your going from 64 bit to either 64 bit or 32 bit. Just remeber to reinstall them, They most probably will not work. Just search for the title in your favourite search engine to find what came from where! Your personal files will be in Windows.old/users (Vista) or windows.old/documents and settings (XP and 2000)
Also, there is a free alternative to Acronis called DriveimageXML, It is as easy to use and as quick, I used it recently when a harddisk was sounding its last moments (click of doom)
I have used acronis before to backup my fathers machine and it was suprisingly quick. (it was a 400 gig)
I used DriveimageXML to back up the adforementioned 500 Gig drive (Maxtor, may I add) and was done in a comparable amount of time (two cups of tea!)
Without further ado http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm
I hope you find this useful
Its well written and is very stable!
Regards, Mark
November 21, 2009 — 3:43 am
Ruby Jones says:
I’m pretty much impressed with the stability of Windows 7. It is better than windows Vista which hogs my memory and cpu.,::
May 7, 2010 — 2:14 am
Evan Kline says:
I have to agree with you there. Windows 7 is amazingly lightweight.
May 7, 2010 — 9:15 am