DoubleClutcher
Ridgcrest,CA
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Anyone have any experience with upgrading XP to Windows 7?
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Gary Franks
Fulltimer from Newport Beach, California
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I attempted to upgrade Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 Ultimate. I was greeted by a message that stated that Windows XP cannot be upgraded to Windows 7 (it made no mention of the Pro edition vs. Ultimate). It did allow me to install it side by side which did not remove XP from the machine, it merely renamed the folder to Windows.old and made XP non-operational.
This particular Dell notebook PC is 5 years old and I must admit, Windows 7 has performed very fast on it. When I attempted to update the video driver, it merely went online by itself and found the correct driver. I have not yet installed any applications on it, but so far so good.
'05 Fleetwood Bounder Diesel 39Z | Datastorm F2 Satellite Internet | Toad1: '03 Lincoln Town Car | Toad2: '08 Jeep Wrangler Sahara Unlimited 4WD
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Deus Ex Machina
Central New Jersey
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The only way to upgrade Windos XP to Windows 7 is to upgrade it to Vista first, then to Windows 7.
The best way is to bite the bullets and do a clean install. Windows 7 is a great O/S. Why bring all the garbage over from your previous installation?
Paul
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buldaawg
Dallas,Georgia
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Info on the installation process is all over the web in tech sites.. Not sure you'll want the hassle of removing XP though. Its been a good OS for me...
* This post was
edited 10/28/09 06:46am by buldaawg *
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8.1 Van
Millstone NJ
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I would not waste my time upgrading any OS, I always do a fresh install.
2002 Chevy Express LS 3500 8.1 155" WB passenger van 3.73 posi (GT4/G80)
2003 Thor Citation 41-ZBSR 41ft TT
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FoxFifth
Eugene,OR
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Also there may be some confusion involving the word "upgrade" -- depending on what system you have and what you are attempting to end up with you may be able to do an "Upgrade" or may need a "Custom" install but either of these are done using an "Upgrade" disk. I just "upgraded" from Vista 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit on a Dell PC by backing up all of my data and settings to an external drive then booting the PC from the upgrade disk and using it to remove all of the old Dell partitions, format the disk, and install Windows 7. That process was surprisingly quick and easy; getting my old programs reinstalled and getting everything the way I like it was much more time consuming. It is my understanding that the OP could move from XP to Windows 7 via the same procedure I used.
2005 Arctic Fox 27-5L
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DoubleClutcher
Ridgcrest,CA
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Thanks for all the input. I wonder how this "upgrade" approach is going to go over with the customer base. There have been a lot of business users who stuck with XP because of issues with Vista. MS continued supplying XP as an option on new machines and now seems to be punishing those who went that route. Since it is possible to upgrade XP to Vista and then Vista to Win7, that MS could easily supply a very limited Vista to use for the XP to 7. It has to be a marketing decision. With the Windows XP Mode they have already developed they could also have given the option of a direct transfer of existing software and data to it.
I agree that the best approach is a clean Win 7 install. This works well for the user who mainly uses the computer for the Office Suite, maybe Firefox, and a photo editor. I am an engineer and programmer who has a lot of special applications, some of which aren't available anymore. The same goes for accounting packages, business planning, etc.
I'm scheduled to attend the Consumer Electronics Show in January and will have a chance to question Microsoft. By then the implications of their decision should become evident.
I hate to add one more computer to the DOS, Win98, Win2000, and Win XP machines I have set up with a KVM switch.
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hitchup
Fulltiming in Mount Airy.
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Win7 is much easier to get used to than Vista. DH did the upgrade on our Vista laptop this weekend and had conflict with the Trend Micro virus protection. So had to delete and go back to a Norton 360. It was fairly simple, just took about 3 hrs.
I told DH to leave the XP alone on the Desktop. When I downloaded my pictures from XP to Win7, it took all 4286 out of the 100+ folders and now I have to recreate and move them.
2009 DRV Mobile Suite 38TKSB3....our custom home
2008 Ford F450 Lariat CC 4x4......his office
Working Fulltimers since 3/2005
"Shoot for the Moon! Even if you miss it, you will land among the Stars."
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DoubleClutcher
Ridgcrest,CA
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I use Adobe Elements to organize and edit photos. While it has a very reliable editor, the organizer isn't! For one thing it creates a folder structure for the photos and the catalog index is dependent on it not changing. Using the Elements export/import and backup utilities is not dependable. If I had not had an image backup of my entire XP hard drive I would have had a disaster when I tried to create a copy of my photos on a Vista machine. I can only guess what the Win 7 upgrade would do. One of the problems is that Vista (and I'm guessing Win 7) got rid of the XP's My Documents naming. While I don't miss that many programs have it hard coded. If you try to create a My Documents on a Vista machine it will do everything it can to stop you and if you are successful it hides it.
I guess our computers are becoming like our tow vehicles and want to think for us whether we like it or not.
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FoxFifth
Eugene,OR
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DoubleClutcher wrote: ... One of the problems is that Vista (and I'm guessing Win 7) got rid of the XP's My Documents naming. While I don't miss that many programs have it hard coded. If you try to create a My Documents on a Vista machine it will do everything it can to stop you and if you are successful it hides it. ...
Maybe I'm missing something in your post or it may be that I don't remember how it used to be in XP but under Vista and now under Win 7 I have a "My Document" folder which was automatically created for each username -- C:\Users\username\My Documents
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