Upgrading w7 builds question

[lucuis]

Hi everyone.

I have been running W7 Beta build 7057 since it was out as my main Os with almost 0 issues. I am very pleased with it, definetaly gonna be purchasing this OS when it hits the shelves.

Anyways my question is. If I was to upgrade my build to the latest RC, would i lose any OS user settings? Would i have to reconfigure icons, bootup, etc? Or would everything remain the same. Kinda like updating a Driver?

I have it on a separate partition from my programs and such. It;s just the OS on C all by itself

Thanks.

 

[mindless728]

you don't want to upgrade to the RC, you would want to do a clean install
i suppose you could back that stuff up, but, i wouldnt even bother, it would take some time an effort

 

[lucuis]

Actually from what i read, i want to do an upgrade. There's been quite a few people having issues with a clean install.

Also my question remains unanswered.

 

[Siggy19]

Windows 7 RC is not designed to be upgraded from Windows 7 Beta. The installation routine is designed with only two options; upgrading from Vista or doing a clean installation.

The issues that may occur with a clean install would all occur with an upgrade, except that you would have the additional problems caused by doing the upgrade kludge (probably including having subtly incompatible versions of the same DLL or Registry entries).

Can it be done ? Yes. I gather it is not that hard either.

Will you have good results ? From what I have heard, probably not.

Will you have to tweak the OS settings ? Dunno, but probably.

 

[lucuis]

Hmm, ok. I coulda swore RC was able to upgrade from beta. Either way, how would i go about backing up settings and stuff.

How do i backup the registry, so i don't need to reinstall programs? etc.

BTW everything is pretty clean right now, i spent a ton of time tweaking, and setting things up just the way i like it. Hence my reasoning for preserving as much as i can while updating to RC.

The only things i have installed on C drive aside from the OS is Drivers, and of course the stuff that gets put there automatically when installing programs on the separate drive.

 

[boonality]

If you have the computer the way you want it, why are you changing it? If you are going to change it, you may has well start clean.

 

[lucuis]

I'd love to just leave it, but unfortunately the beta builds of windows 7 are gonna be expired july 2009. Where as the RC is good till march 2010 i believe. Either way the RC will have more life. I plan to run w7 until i can purchase it, hopefully.

I suppose if i really have to i can do a clean install, and salvage what i can by doin' a registry rebuild, and backing settings if i need to. I have a good feeling the registry will be all i nd to do, aside from drivers.

 

[Siggy19]

There are notes on the web on how to force windows 7 to do an upgrade from the beta... I suspect that a search on Yahoo or Google for "Upgrade windows 7 beta to rc" will find them.

However, you will face the same issue when Windows 7 is released to the public and so you may want to consider doing the clean install and documenting the tweaks that you make so that you can repeat them manually later, if it is needed.

 

[lucuis]

There are notes on the web on how to force windows 7 to do an upgrade from the beta... I suspect that a search on Yahoo or Google for "Upgrade windows 7 beta to rc" will find them.

However, you will face the same issue when Windows 7 is released to the public and so you may want to consider doing the clean install and documenting the tweaks that you make so that you can repeat them manually later, if it is needed.

I'm thinkin' i might try the Easy Transfer thing, while backing up the registry just in case. Seems promising.