Windows 7 Upgrade/Install Tips

illanadan

 This is a thread dedicated to installing and/or upgrading to Windows 7. The idea for this thread came from seeing several other threads asking these questions. I have taken the questions and answers from these threads and attempted to lay it out in a FAQ format. Thank you to everyone who has helped out others with answering these questions.

 

Upgrading to Windows 7 From another Windows Operating System

• From zantax: XP any version -> any version of Windows 7 32 or 64bit = requires a full wipe of the hard drive, you will lose everything. Recommend a full backup of all data and make sure you have install media for after the reload.
  
  Vista Basic -> any version of Windows 7 = Same as XP to windows 7, a full wipe will happen, again make sure you have all install media and a full backup.
  
  Any other version of Vista 32 bit -> any version of Windows 7 but only 32 bit = straight upgrade, microshaft says you don't need to back anything up, I suggest you back up all data just in case I never trust upgrades. I will be honest I have never upgraded a 32 bit Vista to 64Bit Windows 7 so not sure if this would do a full wipe I am assuming it would though. With that in mind...
  
  Any 64bit version of Vista -> any 64bit version of Windows 7 = Straight upgrade, still suggest the backup to be safe, and I have never downgraded from Vista 64Bit to windows 7 32bit so not sure if that would even work.
  
  Upgrading to windows 7 is great over XP, and nice over Vista. In all honesty I have only run into one problem with the 64 bit versions of Vista and Windows 7, and that is with EA games. EA can't seem to figure out how to put icons in your start menu or on your desktop, you can just create them yourself and the games work fine, but it is annoying. In a few cases you have to download a patch from EA to bring up the version but haven't had an EA game not work on a 64bit OS yet.
  
  Rule of thumb when upgrading any Operating systems, always BACKUP YOUR DATA. NEVER trust any Operating system to do it for you or to just upgrade you. Things out of its control may happen, power goes out, disk might not be read properly...etc. In any of these cases there is a high likely hood you will lose data so BACKUP.

 

Upgrading to Windows 7 64bit from XP 32bit

• From Eben: (note: 'M' drive is what we are calling a secondary hard drive.) Going from XP 32-bit to Win7 64-bit will require a clean install. There is no way to 'upgrade' 32-bit to 64-bit. So, your system drive (whichever one you have XP installed on) will be formatted (blanked, erased, whatever term you prefer). Your 'M' drive won't be touched, unless you specifically tell the installer to format that drive during setup. Which you shouldn't do. However, even though your games will be on that 'M' drive, Win7 won't know they are there, ie you won't have shortcuts, registry entries won't be there, and your games may or may not run if you try to start them via the main game executable. So, you should keep in mind that any games you have could, and probably will, have to be reinstalled or repaired.
  
  
  
  My advice, back up everything you want to to keep to a temp folder on that 'M' drive, do a clean install of win7 on your 'C' drive, then restore your backed up files, install all your applications, then look into fixing/reinstalling your games. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds, trust me.

 

Should I Switch from 32bit To 64bit?

• From Eben: That's really up to personal preference. I have 8 gigs of ram in this system, and 3 in my laptop, and I run 64-bit win7 on both of them. I just like to think of it like this; by going 32-bit now, a person would have to do a reinstall if they ever bought more memory. So might as well save the work later.
  
  Most of the programs I use are native 32-bit, and I've been 64-bit for...a year or two now, with Vista before this. I've never known any glaring incompatibility or anything that just flat-out refused to run, other than a few slightly shady apps for disc duplication and things like that.
• From illanadan: 32 bit versions of OS's can only see a max of 3.5 gigs. 64bit can see more than that. If you don't mind loosing half a gig feel free to use the 32bit, if you ever plan on going higher though you will have to have 64bit to make it worthwhile.

 Any other information you think is important and/or may be helpful please post!