Best way to upgrade to Windows 7

  • Thread starter Thread starter OREALLY
  • Start date Start date
O

OREALLY

Hi,

Is there a way to upgrade to Windows 7 w/o losing programs and data?

Thanks,

Oreally
 
OREALLY said:
Hi,

Is there a way to upgrade to Windows 7 w/o losing programs and data?
Click to expand...
If you are using XP you can 'upgrade' to Vista. From Vista you can upgrade
to W7. There may be other methods but MS has not made it so XP users can
instantly go from XP to W7... and I'm not sure why!
 
No unless you go by intermediate stage via vista as "Someone Watching" has
posted.

You really need to do a clean install of ANY new operating system because
this gives you the opportunity to start afresh and so if there are any
problems then you know it is Windows 7 nothing else. Or the time factor of
installing is also critical. Clean install always takes less time than
upgrade install and in Windows 7 this is crucial unless you want to spend
whole weekend doing it.

hth
 
In
someone watching said:
MS has not made it so XP users can instantly go from
XP to W7... and I'm not sure why!
Click to expand...

It's called money. It's the only thing M$ cares about.
 
LD55ZRA said:
Clean install always takes less time than upgrade install and in Windows 7
this is crucial unless you want to spend whole weekend doing it.

hth
Click to expand...

That's not necessarily true. Took me 45 minutes to upgrade from Vista to
Win7. I've done clean installs of Win2k and XP that took way longer than
that since you have to consider that with a clean install, you have to
reinstall all of your other programs after the OS installation. Add that
time up and it's a lot more than a simple upgrade. I haven't done an
Xp-Vista-Win7 upgrade, but I can't imagine it being more than a leisurely
evening to do if the installer has checked to make sure his hardware and
software is compatible with both Vista and Win7.
 
In
OREALLY said:
Hi,

Is there a way to upgrade to Windows 7 w/o losing programs
and data?
Thanks,

Oreally
Click to expand...

No, for your application programs; they all have to be reinstalled from the
original CDs.

Yes for you data. Backup ALL of your important data first, then Restore it
after the install is complete. Xcopy makes a good native backup copier for
copying to a safe location such as an external drive.


HTH,

Twayne`
 
In
Greg Russell said:
In

It's called money. It's the only thing M$ cares about.
Click to expand...

You're called uneducated/inexperienced. They are two entirely different
animals.
 
In
SC Tom said:
That's not necessarily true. Took me 45 minutes to upgrade
from Vista to Win7. I've done clean installs of Win2k and
XP that took way longer than that since you have to
consider that with a clean install, you have to reinstall
all of your other programs after the OS installation. Add
that time up and it's a lot more than a simple upgrade. I
haven't done an Xp-Vista-Win7 upgrade, but I can't imagine
it being more than a leisurely evening to do if the
installer has checked to make sure his hardware and
software is compatible with both Vista and Win7.
Click to expand...

But surely you must agree that backing up is important anytime any action
has to do with the OS? Far too many people live without backups of their
data. The slightest glitch that leaves the OS corrupted easily leads to
loss of all data.

Twayne`
 
Sure, upgrade to Vista, get it fully-patched & SP1 installed, then upgrade
to Win7. Oh, and pay mucho $$$ for each upgrade, too.

Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7

How to Prep for an XP-to-Windows 7 Upgrade
http://www.pcworld.com/article/174311/how_to_prep_for_an_xptowindows_7_upgrade_faq.html

Help with Migrating Windows XP to Windows 7:
http://blogs.technet.com/kdean/archive/2009/10/18/help-with-migrating-windows-xp-to-windows-7.aspx

Part 1 - Migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/sp...ting-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7-part-1.aspx
 
Twayne said:
In

But surely you must agree that backing up is important anytime any action
has to do with the OS? Far too many people live without backups of their
data. The slightest glitch that leaves the OS corrupted easily leads to
loss of all data.

Twayne`
Click to expand...

Well, sure, everyone should have some kind of recovery program in place. The
statement was that it takes longer to do an upgrade than a clean install,
and I disagreed with that. I always do a disk image before any major
update/upgrade, and often before minor ones also, depending on what all is
involved/changed by that update.
 
Is there a way to upgrade to Windows 7 w/o losing programs and data?
Click to expand...



From what ? What version of Windows are you running now?

You've asked in an XP newsgroup, so perhaps you are running XP. If you
are running XP, no, you can *not* upgrade to Windows 7. You can
upgrade to Vista and from Vista, you can then upgrade to Windows 7,
but that two-step upgrade doubles the risk of your having problems.

And if you are running Vista now, you can upgrade directly to Windows
7. But realize that there is always a risk of problems, so be sure
that before beginning you have a backup of any data you can't afford
to lose.
 
That's not necessarily true.
Click to expand...


Right, it's hardly ever true.

Took me 45 minutes to upgrade from Vista to
Win7. I've done clean installs of Win2k and XP that took way longer than
that since you have to consider that with a clean install, you have to
reinstall all of your other programs after the OS installation.
Click to expand...


Exactly! And not only do you have to reinstall them, in many cases you
also have to reconfigure them to the way you like them.

Add that time up and it's a lot more than a simple upgrade.
Click to expand...



*Much* longer. It depends on how many and what programs you have
installed, and to what extent you've configured them, but it can
easily take a few days. And unlike doing an upgrade installation,
which essentially runs by itself with almost no attention from you,
all the program installation and configuration requires your
attention.

My Windows 7 installation on my main desktop computer here would
easily take me 2-3 days to reinstall cleanly and put back the way it
is. And that's 2-3 days of pretty much constant attention.

I haven't done an
Xp-Vista-Win7 upgrade, but I can't imagine it being more than a leisurely
evening to do if the installer has checked to make sure his hardware and
software is compatible with both Vista and Win7.
Click to expand...



I have. I did that with my netbook, more as an experiment than
anything else. Since I use it for e-mail while traveling and very
little else, I didn't really care very much what version of Windows it
was running. But because to do it I had to go to Vista, then SP1 of
Vista, then Windows 7, and it was done on a slow machine, it took the
better part of two days.

However, despite its taking two days, it mostly did what it did by
itself and took very little attention from me. So the two days really
didn't bother me at all. If I had done it by doing a clean
installation of Windows 7, it probably would have taken about the same
two days (that's about what it took when I first installed and
configured all the apps on it under Windows XP), but it would have
been two days that kept me very busy.
 
Right, it's hardly ever true.
Click to expand...

Ah but you haven't done a clean install in your lifetime so what made
you say you are an expert? Your opinion doesn't matter in such things.
 
Ken Blake said:
Right, it's hardly ever true.




Exactly! And not only do you have to reinstall them, in many cases you
also have to reconfigure them to the way you like them.





*Much* longer. It depends on how many and what programs you have
installed, and to what extent you've configured them, but it can
easily take a few days. And unlike doing an upgrade installation,
which essentially runs by itself with almost no attention from you,
all the program installation and configuration requires your
attention.

My Windows 7 installation on my main desktop computer here would
easily take me 2-3 days to reinstall cleanly and put back the way it
is. And that's 2-3 days of pretty much constant attention.





I have. I did that with my netbook, more as an experiment than
anything else. Since I use it for e-mail while traveling and very
little else, I didn't really care very much what version of Windows it
was running. But because to do it I had to go to Vista, then SP1 of
Vista, then Windows 7, and it was done on a slow machine, it took the
better part of two days.

However, despite its taking two days, it mostly did what it did by
itself and took very little attention from me. So the two days really
didn't bother me at all. If I had done it by doing a clean
installation of Windows 7, it probably would have taken about the same
two days (that's about what it took when I first installed and
configured all the apps on it under Windows XP), but it would have
been two days that kept me very busy.
Click to expand...

I've been putting off upgrading from XP to Win7 for that very reason. I've
had XP on this PC since XP was released to the public, and I've installed a
lot of programs since then. Granted, a lot of them are not used much, if at
all, any more, but there are a number of ones I do use that I don't have the
installation files for, and probably not the registration codes either.
They're all legal, but with moving/cleaning/getting rid of old stuff, I just
don't have everything that I bought over the years.
Aside from the fact that I don't have a Vista install disk or another Win7
one, and I really don't want to put out the bucks to upgrade an OS I'm
perfectly happy with. I guess sometime between now and 2014 I'll have to do
something :-)
 
You have to ask Ken Blake [MVP] to steal your system so that you can claim
insurance money! He has a learnt a thing or two from Microsoft which
specialises in pirating people's patents!

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9171878/Microsoft_loses_106M_patent_verdict_to_VirnetX

Microsoft have an army of pirates working for nothing called MVPs to
indicate Most Valuable Pirates.
Click to expand...


Another example of the troll changing his persona to escape our
killfiles.

No problem; I'll put you back in.

Ken
 
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