Upgrading XP to 7?

[AllanD]

A good chunk of this incorrect to start off installing windows 7 onto a previously windows xp system will always cure a virus issue this is because you cannot simply use the upgrade function like xp to vista or vista to windows 7 you are required to do a format and install. This will also fix the fragmentation issues on the system as a full format erases the tables etc. This will give the user a fragmentation free drive. With the new install cc cleaner will not e needed personally I find programs like that as a waste of time and bandwidth half of the thing cc cleaner does is built into the windows command "msconfig" you are correct that if a drive is full an os upgrade won't help but I am confused what it has to do with anything posted in here...

Now as for the I have avg and never got a virus that's like saying I have never been in a car accident so I don't need insurance. You get what you pay for avg, avast and the other free antivirus programs do prevent some virus's they are however not very good and miss more than they catch good pay for antivirus programs are kaspersky, nod32, and trend micro pro. I personally use none of those I instead have no av protection since I know how to avoid them. Ie don't open bogus emails don't click popups and use care when downloading. The last virus I had ran under the name of mcaffee and that was even paid for :/

Actually a "clean install" is anything but.

you should look at a fragmentation map of a VIRGIN drive that you've just installed XP onto

And look how much crap you delete running "Disc cleanup" after your first manually triggered
"windows update" after doing a "clean" install

THEN run CC cleaner to see how much stuff Disc cleaner missed.

Doing a clean install on a computer and running all the updates usually takes me all day
(but I can run four or more systems at once because much of the time is spent waiting)

By the time you can get a pressed disc there are typically around 100-130 updates that windows automatic update is going to want to install, but you will never get them all on in one go, because in the process there will be 5-6 restarts to install parts that are necissary for later upgrades.

If you let it run "automatic updates" daily it takes seven to ten days to finish making a hashed
up mess of the OS drive, running disc cleanup (in disc management) CC-Cleaner and defragging
the OS HDD between each forced session of updates speeds the process enormously.

I've actually achieved the allegedly impossible... a complete install with ALL current updates
and ZERO disc fragmention, infact I did it five times on five seperate systems over the
weekend.

Ofcourse if all five systems had been identical Dell systems I wouldn't have needed to...
I would've just done ONE system then CLONED the drive four times.

Because on a Dell the OS doesn't know (or care) about the MoBo Serial number.

you can freely swap WinXP and Win Vista drives between systems without major issues
Oh yeah, if there are hardware differences you get to install the proper set of drivers
for the specific hardware, but....

My personal motto is "Dell the ideal computer for an IT guy who'd rather spend his time
playing World of Warcraft or browsing ebay"...




Before considering upgrading to windows7 you also need to go to either Microsoft.com
or HPSupport.com (or your computer manufacturer's webside as appropriate) then
download and run "windows7 update advisor"

this will tell you what needs to be done to upgrade to Win7, if it's even possible with your
specific model.

You may have hardware as well as driver issues that prevent upgrading
to win7


I know on my Dell notebook (factory Vista Basic) I must use some vista drivers and there are other Win7 specific drivers I need to install to run Win7.

I have the Win7-Pro install disc sitting here on my desk, but I'm not doing a thing to my current
install of Win Vista-Basic.

Because my current Win Vista basic is on a 160gb drive, I'll install Win7 onto a virgin 320gb drive that's still sealed in the WD anti-static bag

So worst case is I'll have to swap drives back and forth until I get Win7 "dialed in"

 

[cdawall]

Actually a "clean install" is anything but.

you should look at a fragmentation map of a VIRGIN drive that you've just installed XP onto

And look how much crap you delete running "Disc cleanup" after your first manually triggered
"windows update" after doing a "clean" install

THEN run CC cleaner to see how much stuff Disc cleaner missed.

Doing a clean install on a computer and running all the updates usually takes me all day
(but I can run four or more systems at once because much of the time is spent waiting)

By the time you can get a pressed disc there are typically around 100-130 updates that windows automatic update is going to want to install, but you will never get them all on in one go, because in the process there will be 5-6 restarts to install parts that are necissary for later upgrades.

If you let it run "automatic updates" daily it takes seven to ten days to finish making a hashed
up mess of the OS drive, running disc cleanup (in disc management) CC-Cleaner and defragging
the OS HDD between each forced session of updates speeds the process enormously.

I've actually achieved the allegedly impossible... a complete install with ALL current updates
and ZERO disc fragmention, infact I did it five times on five seperate systems over the
weekend.

Ofcourse if all five systems had been identical Dell systems I wouldn't have needed to...
I would've just done ONE system then CLONED the drive four times.

Because on a Dell the OS doesn't know (or care) about the MoBo Serial number.

you can freely swap WinXP and Win Vista drives between systems without major issues
Oh yeah, if there are hardware differences you get to install the proper set of drivers
for the specific hardware, but....

My personal motto is "Dell the ideal computer for an IT guy who'd rather spend his time
playing World of Warcraft or browsing ebay"...




Before considering upgrading to windows7 you also need to go to either Microsoft.com
or HPSupport.com (or your computer manufacturer's webside as appropriate) then
download and run "windows7 update advisor"

this will tell you what needs to be done to upgrade to Win7, if it's even possible with your
specific model.

You may have hardware as well as driver issues that prevent upgrading
to win7


I know on my Dell notebook (factory Vista Basic) I must use some vista drivers and there are other Win7 specific drivers I need to install to run Win7.

I have the Win7-Pro install disc sitting here on my desk, but I'm not doing a thing to my current
install of Win Vista-Basic.

Because my current Win Vista basic is on a 160gb drive, I'll install Win7 onto a virgin 320gb drive that's still sealed in the WD anti-static bag

So worst case is I'll have to swap drives back and forth until I get Win7 "dialed in"

fragmented or not i have SSD's for what i use and even with fragmentation the drives are quite fast not to mention i format and reinstall windows at least once a week just out of what i use computers for (no its not due to virus's)

the disk i use to install windows 7 is a full install retail disk and during install when prompted to enable auto updates that little section is turned off auto updates does nothing but hinder what i use my pc for.

now for what to and not to install windows 7 on most of the drivers for that DELL notebook you have are available on intel/realtek's websites and have a 64bit windows 7 version even if DELL does not offer one. also windows little recommend me page is way to get people to buy certain products go see what it says about my netbook....its a nice little gateway

AMD Athlon 64 L110 overclocked to 1.6ghz
2GB DDR2 ram
320GB 7200RPM seagate hard drive
ATi X1270 integrated graphics

thats not exactly the specs for a windows 7 64b ultimate unit however the OS works perfectly fine with it and is faster then when i ran XP PRO or server 2003 on it.

all systems that can run XP PRO can run windows 7 the only thing that needs to be checked is if it supports 32bit or 64bit. i prefer 64bit due to the added abilities in autodesk softwares with extended memory profiles vs 32bit i also feel it is more stable.

if you want i can pull alot more fancy things out. google the name cdawall if you want to see what i have and still do with pc's my last setup was engineering sample processors if that narrows things down any for you.

 

[AllanD]

Yes. but unfragmented will run a bit faster.

Frankly, if I were setting up an OS to run on an SSD I'd get it "dialed in"
defragged and fully updated on another drive then simply norton ghost
it onto the SSD...

why? because while it might not do any reall god it can't hurt.

As for Win7 on the notebook?

Some Dell users had MAJOR problems getting the audio to work correctly
(sound breaking up during DVD playback)

So did I, but re-installing the factory optical drive fixed that issue,

I don't get to burn any lightscribe discs... Boo Hoo. (Blank expression)

Win7-Pro runs perfectly.... EXCEPT for the counting clock that tells me
I have 26days to activate it.

I have no CoA, but I do still have a perfectly functioning Vista Home-Basic OS
(on the original HDD)


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[cdawall]

Yes. but unfragmented will run a bit faster.

Frankly, if I were setting up an OS to run on an SSD I'd get it "dialed in"
defragged and fully updated on another drive then simply norton ghost
it onto the SSD...

why? because while it might not do any reall god it can't hurt.

As for Win7 on the notebook?

Some Dell users had MAJOR problems getting the audio to work correctly
(sound breaking up during DVD playback)

So did I, but re-installing the factory optical drive fixed that issue,

I don't get to burn any lightscribe discs... Boo Hoo. (Blank expression)

Win7-Pro runs perfectly.... EXCEPT for the counting clock that tells me
I have 26days to activate it.

I have no CoA, but I do still have a perfectly functioning Vista Home-Basic OS


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so you just reaffirmed what i said minus some people who couldn't figure out how to get audio to work correctly?

oh and i have a saved install on a seperate sata drive and just ghost it over when i want a new install...when i get new VGA cards etc i will install on the 250GB and ghost after

 

[AllanD]

so you just reaffirmed what i said minus some people who couldn't figure out how to get audio to work correctly?

oh and i have a saved install on a seperate sata drive and just ghost it over when i want a new install...when i get new VGA cards etc i will install on the 250GB and ghost after

Not getting the audio to work properly in Win7 on older Dells is an
issue not with "operator malfunction, but rather with Dell and with
the drivers

Dell uses Sigmatel for their audio and while Sigmatel may have updated drivers for the affected (or afflicted) Dell computers they will only release them through Dell... and Dell isn't releasing them.

I figuired out my problem by trying to play a DVD with my Vista setup
and discovering the same audio issues I had in Win7, but I had played DVD's before so I went back to the one other thing I changed.... the DVD drive.
The factory DVD drive in this dell will play/read DVD-DL discs
but it won't burn DL discs, the other drive is a DL/Lightscribe drive, but my Dell simply doesn't like it (it works fine in several other notebooks, so...)

Anyway, now all I need is a Win7-pro COA and I'm set...

then again, even though my win7 is "counting down" it hasn't produced any countdown warning balloons, and it may just run out the clock and keep running.... I see this weirdness as potentially a non-issue because I used a Dell factory restore disc for Win7 to do this "clean" install... AND I still have the factory 160gb drive with a fully functional Vista Home-basic on it, so...

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