Win 7 installation questions

[Deepak]

My machine has Win XP SP3. I am thinking of installing Win 7. I saw installation videos on youtube and found that there are two install options, "upgrade" and "fresh install".

I have my data on D and E drives (partitions).

If I go "upgrade" route then I do not need to backup my data (I don't have any backup device right now or I would have backed up), Win 7 will get installed on C drive, right?

If I select "fresh install", it'll delete everything on all partitions and then install Win 7?

So the only option available to me is the "upgrade" option? BTW, what are the cons/pros of both install options?

 

[Arwin]

In your case, a fresh install could also be done so that it just clears partition C but not D or E, so you have that option also. If your C partition is big enough that is.

External USB is cheap though and you may opt for simply backupping your D and E to an external HDD?

 

[Bludd]

I have done a few upgrades and it works fine, but they were from Vista to 7.

If you have any software that uses the SPTD driver (daemon-tools or Alcohol), you need to remove it before upgrading as it does not support upgrade install. Go to duplexsecure.com and download the appropriate exe and select uninstall after you run it.

As Arwin says, the fresh install should not touch anything on a partition you do not select during install. Some times there are problems with which partition is selected as system partition and boot partition and these do not necessarily have to be the same, though I do like them to be the same. If you have problems with this, you need to disconnect any HDD that you don't want Win7 to touch. It is doable to change boot and system partitions post install but it is a hassle and involves a lot of CLI tedium.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

My machine has Win XP SP3. I am thinking of installing Win 7. I saw installation videos on youtube and found that there are two install options, "upgrade" and "fresh install".

You can't upgrade any version of Windows XP to Win7. It has to be a fresh install.

I have my data on D and E drives (partitions).

If I go "upgrade" route then I do not need to backup my data (I don't have any backup device right now or I would have backed up), Win 7 will get installed on C drive, right?

If I select "fresh install", it'll delete everything on all partitions and then install Win 7?

No, you can't do an upgrade install, you will have to do a fresh install. You will get the opportunity to decide what partitions will get wiped. In your case, it will be the C drive will be wiped and installed with Windows 7, and the D and E drives should be untouched unless you format them in the partitioning table used during install, or you have them in some freaky, non-standard format.

So the only option available to me is the "upgrade" option? BTW, what are the cons/pros of both install options?

Really, I could talk about the pros and cons, but there's not much point. You have to do a fresh install which will wipe C, but your other drives will be okay unless you are particularly cack handed.

You will want to check to see if you have any user data or configuration files you want for reinstalling apps on your C: drive, and copy them over to your other partitions so you can copy them back when you need them. In fact, if you have space, I would copy or backup the whole of the C drive to one of the other two, so you can pick out what you need after Win7 is running, and then delete what's left when you are done.

 

[Bludd]

You cannot directly upgrade from XP to 7, but if you have Vista also you can upgrade to Vista first and then to 7.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Apart from that, when installing a new OS I would always go for a fresh install. Sure it's a bit more work but atleast you know for sure you won't get any conflict and you are not stuck with upgrade crap that might gets carried over.

 

[Deepak]

Thanks folks for answering my queries. I successfully installed Win 7. To my surprise it did not delete anything in the C drive also.

7 feels really sleek and next gen. I don't think I'll be going back to XP now.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yay, another retired XP installation. /cheer.

Regards,
SB

 

[Davros]

7 feels really sleek and next gen.

sleek its over 15 times the size of xp

 

[entity279]

Yes but according to Moore's law our computers now should be around 32 times better as back then

 

[Grall]

Well, my current PC does have 24x the amount of RAM that my WinXP box had when I got it...that's about as close as I can get, I think... No, wait. The Geforce 3 that came in that box has 64GB RAM onboard. A Radeon 6970 has 2GB, that's 32x.

With crossfire that's 64x...! Gogo AMD, outstripping Moore's law!

A 6970 GPU also has about 35-40x the amount of transistors compared to a Geforce 3. Not quite a fair comparison perhaps; overall system performance including the CPU sure hasn't risen 32x or even close to it. But then again, Moore's "law" is only concerned with transistor counts AFAIK, and not performance, clock speed or such.

 

[entity279]

The issue Davros brought up was (hard drive, presumably) space. The 32x metric i guess is commonly exceeded by today's configurations. In 2002-2003 I remember having some 5x GB hdd on a pretty enthusiast configuration (except for its boring Radeon 9000, that is). 2001 (Xp's launch) was probably in 20GB territory.


And about your GPU configuration: surely you must also congratulate you budget and not only AMD

 

[Davros]

really? I'm sure the "Righteous 55gb of Gaming Goodness" was in existence back then
I guess what bothers me is what the bloody hell is in those extra 14gb ?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The issue Davros brought up was (hard drive, presumably) space. The 32x metric i guess is commonly exceeded by today's configurations. In 2002-2003 I remember having some 5x GB hdd on a pretty enthusiast configuration (except for its boring Radeon 9000, that is). 2001 (Xp's launch) was probably in 20GB territory.


And about your GPU configuration: surely you must also congratulate you budget and not only AMD

02-03, 250 GB HDDs should have been available. I believe 500 GB drives followed in 04. 750 GB in 05. 1 TB in 07. Might be a year late on all those so subtract a year from each possibly. So it's barely keeping up with Moore's law. It'll be interesting to see if 4 TB drives appear this year.

Regards,
SB

 

[corduroygt]

I had a 1920x1200 screen on 15.4" laptop in 2003. Now you can only get 1920x1080 at a bigger 15.6" size
More proof that we're not going beyond 1080p for non movie-theater use.

I suggest disabling libraries in windows 7.
http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-libraries-feature-in-windows-7/

 

[Grall]

Personally I feel 15" is a bit too big a screen in a portable, it makes the entire thing too large. It's difficult to fit such a lappy on a backrest tray of a coach or a train for example (could be too heavy for such a tray as well.)

A 13" unit is much neater, and if you really need a larger, higher-rez screen there's always the option of hooking up an external unit.

 

[mito]

I'm an advocate of fresh installs.

When I think my Windows 7 is bloated, I reserve a Saturday for a fresh reinstall.

Prior to that I make sure I download all drivers and tools.

It's fun.

 

[corduroygt]

Personally I feel 15" is a bit too big a screen in a portable, it makes the entire thing too large. It's difficult to fit such a lappy on a backrest tray of a coach or a train for example (could be too heavy for such a tray as well.)

A 13" unit is much neater, and if you really need a larger, higher-rez screen there's always the option of hooking up an external unit.

Unfortunately, there are only two acceptable 13" notebooks in the market, the macbook air and the vaio Z. The rest is relegated to shitty 1366x768 resolution, which is a big no no. I prefer the 14" business class laptops with 1600x900 screens so that I can have an additional battery or a SSD instead of the DVD slot.

Windows 7 is just about perfect with libraries disabled though. If only we could pin individual folders to the taskbar without some crappy workarounds. MS really dropped the ball on that one, seeing how OSX does it easily.

 

[Davros]

ps: ultimate windows tweaker
http://www.winvistaclub.com/Ultimate_Windows_Tweaker.html

 

[Grall]

The rest is relegated to shitty 1366x768 resolution, which is a big no no.

Hm, I really don't care all that much for screen rez in a portable, and in fact higher rez could be more of an issue for me than a lower, since my eyes aren't as sharp anymore as they used to be and I get a headache squinting to read tiny text.

As for available products, if I was to buy a laptop, I most likely would get an Apple unit rather than a PC with its mess of poor integration and hardware diversity. My dad's new HP AMD lappy needs an external 3rd party driver for the touchpad (hooking up internally through PS/2 for god's sakes, what the hell! It's like USB didn't even exist for the past 15 years! )