Thinking of making the move

[xJACKTHERIPPERx]

so im thinking of switching to windows 7 from vista home premium, but its been quite some time since ive reformatted, and the times i did do it, things didnt go 100% so i have some things id like to ask/confirm. Please let me know if im right or wrong or any easier ways around my messed up though process. thanks.

Ill need to use windows easy transfer or the backup and restore center or do it manually to keep all my files.

Ill need to reinstall all of my games i.e. fallout 3, portal etc, as well as any programs like utorrent. The driver for my video card will also need to be reinstalled.

When i got this computer it had a recovery partition on it, only about 6 gigs. How will i make one once i reformat with windows 7? do i need to create the partition when im installing 7? or is there an option or something to create a recovery partition once its up and running?

thats all i can think of for now i suppose, but if anyone can tell me how far off i am that would be great. thanks again

 

[mrmez]

Just pop the disk in and install away
When ur finished all your apps and settings will be as they were.
Thats what i did on the Mac anyway...

AFAIK going from Vista to W7 will require a format. I've avoided anything after XP like aids, but i'd imagine if you put the disk in it will run you through a lengthy setup procedure with the option to format ur HDD.

Obviously you don't have a time machine which backs up EVERYTHING every hour automatically without you ever knowing, so you will need to figure out what Vista tools (if any) will do something similar. I've never fully trusted the backup and restore thingy, and have tended to use that and a combination of excruciating manual backup, and often simply took the opportunity to get a new HDD so i didn't lose anything.

From my experience, its seldom hassle free.

 

[xJACKTHERIPPERx]

but i will need to reinstall all of my games and drivers and everything probably right?
i may not use the windows backup or the easy transfer thing cause one of the other reasons i wanted to reformat was because some files on my computer just dissapeared one time, but they still take up room on my hard drive, almost 100 gigs worth, so i want to get rid of that extra waste of space, so i think ill just backup everything manually

 

[apache_lives]

just do a fresh install its like 1000x better then upgrading and messing around with all that crap

 

[xJACKTHERIPPERx]

ya im def gonna do a clean install. but i just dont wanna lose all my game saves and crap. like for fallout 3 i cant find a game saves folder to backup

 

[narinos]

Can do a Custom install (like formatting, only keeps old stuff stashed somewhere on the drive), and then run Zinstall XP7 to move XP stuff to Windows 7.

I would still reinstall stuff like Fallout manually though, better performance.

 

[sgs8r]

My advice? Wait until SP1 (or maybe even SP2). And you are ready to build a new PC with relatively recent components.

I upgraded last Nov so I could install > 3 GB and have experienced random freezes ever since-roughly once a day. Many, MANY hours spent checking components (memory, PSU, temps, etc.) disabling services, upgrading drivers, running diagnostics, etc. and reading many different boards, fora, blogs, etc. searching for a solution.

Eventually, MSFT and the various hardware vendors will probably get their act together. Until then, unless you have plain-vanilla HW or a relatively new setup that has been tested under Win 7, upgrade at your own risk.