Upgrading to Win 7

[Watchman~SPARTA~]

Finally decided to upgrade my laptop at the weekend. It was running 32bit Vista, as installed by Dell and I wanted to go the upgrade route so I could avoid re-installing programes, drivers etc.

However, it would only let me upgrade to 32bit Win 7, which I did.

Does anyone know if I can now jump from 32bit Win7 to 64bit Win7, as an upgrade, or will I end up having to do a clean install?

[h3ll]

Sadly a clean install will guarantee the stability of the 64bit.

 

Hope my post helps.

[NoScream~SPARTA~]

Clean install 32bit to 64bit, sorry.

 

backup all personal data

all personal settings

all passwords

all emails

all pictures, videos, files.

 

have fun.

 

 

p.s. 64bit is very good.

[Haloelite]

ohh and more memory which i hope is oblivious to you.

[Watchman~SPARTA~]

Bugger, your replies are what I expected sadly!

 

I've been running 64bit Win7 on my desktop since October and thoroughly impressed with it, was just being lazy getting it onto my lappy.

Will finally get to use the 4gig RAM that was installed too.

 

Cheers Guys.

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

I've decided to take the plunge into Windows 7 myself--Home Premium, 64-bit--although I am taking the decidedly more convenient and safer route.

 

I picked up an OEM copy locally and got a great deal on it along with the purchase of a Seagate Barracuda 1TB HD. My system currently has Vista 64-bit HP installed on a 160GB drive, all games installed on a 500GB drive, and a 320GB drive for use with programs such as Fraps. I also have 2 external drives: a 640GB drive that has uncompressed back-ups of irreplaceable and convenient files, and a 500GB drive that I use for complete system back-ups (drive images).

 

As I write this, I am cloning the 160GB boot drive to the 320GB drive, which will become the new boot drive that I will split into two equal partitions, because I am going to dual-boot Vista and Win7 from this drive. The Win7 install will be for gaming only, and I will install only things that are absolutely necessary for gaming, such as drivers for my controllers, Fraps for recording footage, etc. Everything else non-game related will run under Vista. Over the coming weeks I'll reinstall all of my games under Win7 on the new 1TB HD. In the meantime, I can still play games under Vista--remember, they're all installed on the 500GB drive--and, once a game is installed and working under Win7 and I've copied over profile settings and such, I can delete it from Vista.

 

I used to do this awhile back, only it was an XP/Vista dual-boot. I'm perfectly content with Vista, but I'm pretty sure I'll get a little performance boost for my games by having them installed on a clean, minimal OS base that isn't cluttered with non-gaming-related crap (MS Office, Adobe apps, etc).

 

The only downside to all of this is that I'll eventually need to purchase an external 1TB (or larger) HD to continue making full drive-image back-ups of all of the above, but they are priced very cheap these days.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

Hi Fatal,

 

I honestly think after a lil bit u ll be using Win 7 u ll love it and u ll move all of ure stuff on it.

 

If u r already happy with Vista, u ll be super happy with 7, because it s a sort of really enhanced and upgraded Vista.

 

I don twanna push u into 7 but i do believe it will be a natural consequence, so before u want to invest in a new external 1 TB, maybe u wanna have a full test drive on 7.

I m actually using it since the beta testing and now with the retail version with all of the pruductive software and game software and performances are just amazing.

 

To not talk about his full compatibility with all possible hardware, which get installed seamlessly because 7 automatically get the best drivers ad u don t even have to bother with Cd to install.

 

Just test it, but i think u ll end removing Vista switching all of ure productivity on 7.

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

...

I honestly think after a lil bit u ll be using Win 7 u ll love it and u ll move all of ure stuff on it.

...

To not talk about his full compatibility with all possible hardware, which get installed seamlessly because 7 automatically get the best drivers ad u don t even have to bother with Cd to install.

 

Just test it, but i think u ll end removing Vista switching all of ure productivity on 7.

 

I think you're onto something here, because you just gave me an idea that I'm surprised didn't occur to me earlier.

 

Once all of my games have been migrated over to the Win7 installation, technically, I can't think of any reason why I wouldn't be able to kill the Vista installation and instead use Windows 7 on that partition. In other words, it would still be a dual-boot, but both boots would be to Win7; one for gaming, one for productivity, with both using the same license.

 

I have an OEM version of the OS, which means it's tied to the specific machine I first install it on. My only concern is the legality of this situation; technically, I am installing the OS on only one machine, which is the agreement you must abide by when using an OEM version. Furthermore, only one of the installations would be in use at any given moment.

 

I have a nagging feeling, however, that doing this would violate the EULA; I'm geeky enough that I've read parts of it, but not all of it. I also have a feeling that the EULA may not cover such a specific issue, in which case I'll give it a try.

 

Microsoft is much more relaxed these days than they were when they first created the "Windows Genuine Advantage" program; in many cases, they even allow you to continue using Windows Update even on machines that have been identified as not having a valid/active license. And if MS says my dual-boot is a no-no, that's ok, because I'll still have that Vista license sitting around.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

Honestly I think you r pushing your honesty to alimit ! :0 I do appreciate it, but really, if you think, is only one installation, because it cannot run simultaneously, so talking about that stupid EULA limitation, which has been jusrt recently modified (the old one was not so picky) is not broken.

 

Furthermore, MS is not really checking each one machine, but if ever should that happen, all of the serial parts identified by the system are totally the same, most importantly the NIC card that connects you to the internet.

 

Consider also that the OEM version is sold missing the tech support. Also, if you really wanna feel in fault, consider the new Win 7 OEM EULA says you CANNOT install it on a PC you build for yourself but ONLY on a PC you are re-selling, so you are already violating the EULA.

 

Don t go too crazy and just enjoy your OEM copy like one billion of other users ;)

 

The other thing is that I do not see the reason to have a partition for productivity and one just for games. It sounds to me ahuge waste of room Win 7 is so optimized that you really will not have performances differences on a single install.

 

Think about and let me know, I can search for you a link to the caveat of this stupid new EULA regarding the re-selling part, but trust me, I already analized the issue and is just ridicoulous

With the new EULA MS theoretically denies tech enthuasiasts to save some money building a PC and not even asking for tech support. The old EULA with Vista was not like this.

 

However, I ask a friend of mine to buy the OEM and build a PC for me and sell it to me, but just because we are friends he will ask me a nominal 20 bucks to cover the gas expenses. Now the PC has been sold and I can enjoy the OEM version... how cool is that ? ;)

 

 

Edited February 14, 2010 by Batwing

[GySgt~SPARTA~]

no problems here with windows 7 pro 64bit its all good fresh install been running since middle of january

[Zeno~SPARTA~]

I am doing the same thing, one drive with only the games I play and one drive with everything (not partition, completely seperate hard drives). Plus a seperate vista drive.

 

If I find there is no performance difference I will change the configuration. I did this with xp and vista, I actually got better performance out of XP than vista, so I did a clean install of xp with only a couple of games on it. It booted much faster and Arma 2 played much better.

 

I have upgraded to 7 64bit now and upped the ram to the max this old board will support, so the XP drive is on standby, soon the vista drive will go on standby too.

[Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~]

...

If I find there is no performance difference I will change the configuration. I did this with xp and vista, I actually got better performance out of XP than vista, so I did a clean install of xp with only a couple of games on it. It booted much faster and Arma 2 played much better.

 

So far the performance difference has been measurable if not very noticeable. I'm playing games on a clean OS install; in Win7 versus Vista; and without any programs, drivers, etc., that are not absolutely essential to running my games. At this time, the only games I have installed are Crysis (primarily for benchmarking), Arma 2, and NFS Shift. Using the same settings as the Vista install, Benchmark 1 for Arma 2 runs a whopping 2 FPS faster (34 FPS, 1920x1080, all details at max including AA, filtering, and post-processing, view distance at 2033). Crysis fared better, jumping from 32 FPS to 40 FPS (1920x1080, 64-bit DX10, all settings maxed but without AA, Assault_Harbor demo run). According to Fraps, NFS Shift stays locked at 60 FPS (1920x1080, max settings), so there is no performance difference between Vista and Win7. Oh, I forgot, I also installed Borderlands, all game settings maxed as above, but I haven't benchmarked it. It ran very smoothly under Vista, looking just as good in Win7.

 

The Win7 installation also boots to a "usable" state in less than half the time that Vista does, but then again, my Vista install is loading a few things into memory that aren't even installed under Win7.

 

Finally, reinstalling games has been going well, particularly because I can tell Steam to download and install a big batch of games while I sleep, and then defrag that following night or while I'm at work. And since all of my games are still installed in the Vista world, I can just copy over profile settings to the new installation.

 

There are two single-player games that I'm finishing up--Prince of Persia (2008) and Bioshock 2--and I'll just complete them on the Vista installation to avoid having to reinstall them in Win7. While interesting, the Bioshock 2 multi-player isn't compelling to me, so it's one play-through and then back into the bit-bucket it goes.

[Batwing~SPARTA~]

Win 7 will always boot faster than Vista because it got the optimized processes. Now 7 starts up with the Process you need to start working within about 30 seconds, and you can use your PC right away, later, in background, it starts loading other prrocesses with secondary importance, so you don t notice that.

 

I cannot directly comapre Vista to 7 performances because I skipped Vista entirely. What I know for sure, especially now 7 confirmed a huge customer satisfaction, all the major drivers are implemented for 7 in mind.

 

Which means, the 7 64 or 32 bit drivers for videocard are going to work better on 7 than Vista, with improved performances.

 

I have a quite full loaded config with 7 64 on this core 2 Duo at 3.6 Ghz and 4 MB ram and the boot-to-ready-to-use process involves about 30 seconds, maybe less.

On my other i7 machine with RAID 0 array and fully (really fully) loaded productivity and games it takes something less than 30 seconds to be ready to work. It depends on how fast is your harddisk. SSD (expensive!) or RAID 0 (cheap) configs speed up your life on that subject.

 

On 7 if you keep your drivers well up to date you are going to get the best performances you can compare with XP, which was a sort of benchmark for gaming.