[SOLVED] Adding a HD and OS

[mike the car guy]

Too much stuff just isn't working anymore on XP so I've decided to add a SSD and Win 7. What issues am I likely to run into? My thought is to unplug everything except the new SSD and the optical drive, plug in the DVD and turn it on. I do have the software and license. I also have the CD that came with the mobo when I build it 10 years ago if needed. I've done a few OS installs, most recently a couple of weeks ago, but that was the first time in a decade.

Assuming all that goes ok, would I hit escape to enter BIOS or F12 for Boot Menu once I get both drives plugged in? And how much am I going to have to reload in terms of software, I know it will see other drives, but often software seems to tie into the OS.

Anything else I should know?

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you are going from XP to 7 (Or ANY time you do a clean install of an OS really) you will need to reinstall EVERYTHING. Windows, all applications, drivers for various hardware, etc. And, there may be applications you ran on XP that don't run on 7 if you are running any older applications.

This is how you want to do a clean install.

https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

[mike the car guy]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply.

Disappointed, but not terribly surprised. Will there be any conflict with the same program on 2 different HDs? What would happen if I went into the old drive, Program Files and tried to open something?

 

[Wolfshadw]

If you're booting from the Windows 7 SSD, then the old XP drive is just a data drive. There are no registry entries for your old program installs in the new WIndows 7 registry. They're just files at this point. There wouldn't be any conflict between the two. If you attempted to run an EXE from your XP drive, it would fail, because the executable is looking for an XP OS in memory (and it's only finding Windows 7).

-Wolf sends

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you're booting from the Windows 7 SSD, then the old XP drive is just a data drive. There are no registry entries for your old program installs in the new WIndows 7 registry. They're just files at this point. There wouldn't be any conflict between the two. If you attempted to run an EXE from your XP drive, it would fail, because the executable is looking for an XP OS in memory (and it's only finding Windows 7).

-Wolf sends

This.

 

[mike the car guy]

Thanks Guys!

You're a bit over my head (which is why I'm asking questions) but I kind of follow. So software for the most part is installed to the OS, not really the computer? Which I guess is why uninstall is in the OS control panel. Looks like a bit more work than I expected... like that should be a surprise to me.

Going off topic a bit, how does all that interact with a Linux install, since I'm thinking about tinkering with that too.

 

[Wolfshadw]

A Linux install would be completely separate from your WIndows 7 install. Nothing you install in Windows 7 would be available to you when you boot into Linux. It would be like having two separate machines.

If you're looking to dabble in Linux, then what I would suggest is looking up Virtual Machines (VM). I'm currently running Windows 10 on my system (in the VM world, it's called the Host machine). However, as virtual machines, I have installed Ubuntu client, Ubuntu Server, Windows XP (not working), and Windows 10 1903 as client systems.

I can fire any of these at any time should I feel the want/need.

-Wolf sends

 

[Darkbreeze]

So software for the most part is installed to the OS, not really the computer?

Without an OS there ISN'T any software. You must have some kind of OS installed for most software to work. There are some very limited examples of software that can allow the machine to boot and process whatever the software was designed to allow, like Acronis true image recovery environment, or Memtest86, Gparted partition manager, etc., but so long as you are actually IN the Windows environment, then yes, everything you want to run FROM Windows needs to be installed IN Windows, unless it is a portable application that does not require the various registry entries and dynamic link libraries that normal applications and software need.

Also, if you want to run Linux, you don't even necessarily NEED to run a VM. You can run a bootable Linux distro from a flash drive, with no effect at all on your existing Windows or other OS installations, in order to play around with it and get a feel. Then later if you want to use it on a regular basis you can always configure a dual boot environment for the system OR as Wolf mentioned, install a VM environment like Virtualbox and install and run most Windows and Linux operating systems in the virtual machine, which is entirely sandboxed off from the rest of the actual operating system environment that the VM is running in.