XP to Win7 upgrade question

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I bought a copy of the 3-pc family pack to install on a windows xp pc with an 80gb “C” drive and a 300GB “D” drive that is the secondary. Now, my spouse wants to make the larger drive the primary drive and the smaller drive the secondary drive which is a bit of a dilemma because I only have the upgrade media.

I realize I will have to install XP to the larger drive so that there is a licensed copy of Windows on the drive so I can use the upgrade media to upgrade to Win7. My question is how extensive does that win XP install have to be? Service packs, updates or just the bare minimum. TIA

Diane

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Leave your drives as they are, just use it for installed programs, anything you download and want to save, put it on D:, copy it as a backup to an external hdd. Now when you learn how to backup your system (C: Drive) only, your backups will be much smaller and done faster.

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You are better off loading Windows on the smaller drive and then moving all of your data to the larger drive. Keeping data separate from the operating system makes backup simpler and recovery without data loss easy.
There are a few discussions on moving your data in W7.

cheers, Paul

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Thanks for your help…this does simplify the process.

D.

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PeachesP,

In general, the OS should go on the NEWER (usually, faster) drive. There’s no need to install XP – you just have to have the disc in your possession. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE – see this link, which has worked fine for me on 3 different computers, and REALLY clean things up…

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/win7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media.aspx

Zig

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That is exactly the case here and why we wanted to switch the drives. The secondary hard drive is the newer, faster and IMO the more reliable of the two and has seen little use, but for storage.

Now, I am totally confused. I have read about use of the upgrade media and concluded it was necessary to have an OS installed to use the 3-PC pack, that’s why I asked the question about how much of an install does the XP install have to be..it wouldn’t take all that long if it was a minimal install on a clean drive that I’ve now formatted. I read the article that you referred to. I do have the XP disk in my possession. If I tell him this, I may be at it a while. 😉

D.

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That is exactly the case here and why we wanted to switch the drives. The secondary hard drive is the newer, faster and IMO the more reliable of the two and has seen little use, but for storage.

Now, I am totally confused. I have read about use of the upgrade media and concluded it was necessary to have an OS installed to use the 3-PC pack, that’s why I asked the question about how much of an install does the XP install have to be..it wouldn’t take all that long if it was a minimal install on a clean drive that I’ve now formatted. I read the article that you referred to. I do have the XP disk in my possession. If I tell him this, I may be at it a while. 😉

D.

Can you post an image of your PC Disk set up. Like this.

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Here’s an image of our setup. Excuse the quality, but I’m working with an old monitor and a PC that I’ve uninstalled most of the unnecessary software. The setup is pretty straightforward and both drives are healthy with little or nothing on them.27183-xp-pc

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Here’s an image of our setup. Excuse the quality, but I’m working with an old monitor and a PC that I’ve uninstalled most of the unnecessary software. The setup is pretty straightforward and both drives are healthy with little or nothing on them.27183-xp-pc

Well done, Just leave things as they are, your set-up is good.

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To take a picture of the current program window:
1. Press Ctrl and PrintScreen.
2. Open Paint.
3. Paste.
4. Save as JPEG.
5. Upload.

cheers, Paul

p.s. A nice empty old disk and lots of memory will be just as good as a shiny new large disk.

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I know…but am embarrassed to say, it never entered my mind to do the PrSc thing. I had the digital camera out taking pics of the BIOS screens on a laptop and snapped one of the Disk Mgt screen.

Thanks for answering. Have a great day

Diane

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To take a picture of the current program window:
1. Press Ctrl and PrintScreen.
2. Open Paint.
3. Paste.
4. Save as JPEG.
5. Upload.

cheers, Paul

p.s. A nice empty old disk and lots of memory will be just as good as a shiny new large disk.

Paul, on my PC I do not need to press Ctrl, just the Prt Sc button. Perhaps I have another setting that allows the one button rather than 2, although for the life of me I do not know what.

In general, I still feel the OS should go on the faster drive (or a partition on it). The speed difference may be small, however, considering the difference in size of the drives (unless partitioned). In any event there’s nothing to lose by trying the “bare install” method; if it doesn’t work, you can always fall back on the plain vanilla method, using your XP disk (not installed).

Zig

Zig, I agree the OS should be on the fastest drive. The 80 GB drive that presently holds the C Drive is an ideal location for the new OS. I have my 320 GB HD partitioned as 75 GB C Drive and the remaining approx. 223 GB as D Drive (data). This size drive for the OS and apps works great, On my 75 GB C Drive (which contains Win 7, Office 2010 Pro complete install, and more apps than I care to name) I have 50 GB free, plenty for any maintenance items and more apps,

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Ted,
Now we’re on the same page; since the larger disk is newer and faster, it makes sense to install the OS on it. The larger disk size may result in longer seek times, though, so I would install into a partition on that drive. 70-80GB seems a good size, and I also would move the swap file to a partition on the other disk for additional speed. I additionally install as many of my programs as possible to a separate partition, but this is largely a matter of personal preference & habit.

Zig

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Whenever I upgrade an operating system I ALWAYS instal a new hard disk first, make it the boot disk in the case of desktop, and instal the new OS on it.

The old hard disk can:

* be left in a desktop as a secondary disk that contains all your data and the old OS as a backup in case the new hard disk/OS installation fails – just make take out the failed new Hard disk and make the old one the primary boot disk again and you’re in business again with a known working system.

* for a laptop, replace the hard disk and instal the new OS, and buy a USB box for the old hard disk – you then have a full back of your old OS and data that can be reinstalled in your laptop should the new hard disk/OS installation fail.

Once the new OS is installed, instal all those favourite (and not so favourite but essential) applications and copy your data from the old hard disk to the new one. AND resist the temptation to put new data on the old hard disk – keep it as a pristine backup of your computer from immediately before the OS upgrade.

With hard disks relatively cheap these days, this is a very cheap method of system backup should you need to revert to a known good system.

All in the interests of safe computing and data security.

Cheers

BygAuldByrd

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In general, I still feel the OS should go on the faster drive (or a partition on it). The speed difference may be small, however, considering the difference in size of the drives (unless partitioned). In any event there’s nothing to lose by trying the “bare install” method; if it doesn’t work, you can always fall back on the plain vanilla method, using your XP disk (not installed).

Zig

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If, in doing an upgrade to Win 7, you do a Custom (Clean) install directly over the old OS, Win 7 will include a folder on the C Drive called windows.old which does include the entirety of the old OS within the new OS. From there you can open the windows.old folder and grab all the info you just talked about from this folder and move it to your new OS. Once you have everything, you can simply delete the windows.old folder as it takes up about 3+ GB of space. Images will do the same as saving the pristine old OS in a lot less space. This allows the upgrade without the expense of an entirely new HD. For those that do not feel comfortable swapping hardware, this is a very attractive, and less costly alternative to buying new HD’s when upgrading an OS.

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I bought a copy of the 3-pc family pack to install on a windows xp pc with an 80gb “C” drive and a 300GB “D” drive that is the secondary. Now, my spouse wants to make the larger drive the primary drive and the smaller drive the secondary drive which is a bit of a dilemma because I only have the upgrade media.

I realize I will have to install XP to the larger drive so that there is a licensed copy of Windows on the drive so I can use the upgrade media to upgrade to Win7. My question is how extensive does that win XP install have to be? Service packs, updates or just the bare minimum. TIA

Diane

To my knowledge, assuming same bitness the upgrade disk only needs to be started from within Windows. That would be from within XP or within a “trial” install of Windows 7 which can also be done from the upgrade disk as per Fred Langa’s article.
Good Luck
PC Mechanic
Halifax, NS

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To my knowledge, assuming same bitness the upgrade disk only needs to be started from within Windows. That would be from within XP or within a “trial” install of Windows 7 which can also be done from the upgrade disk as per Fred Langa’s article.
Good Luck
PC Mechanic
Halifax, NS

I believe you are correct, but many of us do advocate a Custom install rather than an Upgrade install. With the Upgrade install any problems with the original OS will most likely be carried forward to the new OS. The Custom install allows installation of a pristine OS that can then be customized to your hearts contentt.

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I also thought that you had to have Windows XP or Vista installed in order to use Windows 7 Upgrade version, both of which I have, but I bought a new hard drive for it and thankfully discovered that you can use it to install Windows 7 to a brand new hard drive. It doesn’t ask for any proof that you have Windows XP or Vista.

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Re: Tedshemyers’s comments on custom install vs. upgrade install: Agree

Zig

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I bought a copy of the 3-pc family pack to install on a windows xp pc with an 80gb “C” drive and a 300GB “D” drive that is the secondary. Now, my spouse wants to make the larger drive the primary drive and the smaller drive the secondary drive which is a bit of a dilemma because I only have the upgrade media.

I realize I will have to install XP to the larger drive so that there is a licensed copy of Windows on the drive so I can use the upgrade media to upgrade to Win7. My question is how extensive does that win XP install have to be? Service packs, updates or just the bare minimum. TIA

Diane

First off, you can buy Acronis True Image Home version, make an image backup of C to a protected zone on the same drive then tell the same program to put that image as a complete copy on the other drive. You dont have to “install xp” at all.

Secondly, you dont UPGRADE to win 7 from XP. You download and install Windows Easy transfer from Microsoft’s site and run it which will get all your important stuff and store it as a file on another drive. Then, you clean install Windows 7 and run the inbuilt Windows Easy Transfer from there and tell it to load the saved stuff from that file and it puts everything of value back in place on the new Win 7. It doesnt install programs such as Microsoft Office but it DOES save the things such as email addresses and passwords should you have used the full Outlook on XP and have it installed on your new Win 7 prior to having imported the XP data. I build new machines all the time and for those going from XP directly to Win 7 I do this all the time and it works out fine. The only way you can UPGRADE to win 7 is from Vista. Depending on how your Vista is running, it isnt always worth it anyway. A clean install is usually better.

Greg.

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I bought a copy of the 3-pc family pack to install on a windows xp pc with an 80gb “C” drive and a 300GB “D” drive that is the secondary. Now, my spouse wants to make the larger drive the primary drive and the smaller drive the secondary drive which is a bit of a dilemma because I only have the upgrade media.

I realize I will have to install XP to the larger drive so that there is a licensed copy of Windows on the drive so I can use the upgrade media to upgrade to Win7. My question is how extensive does that win XP install have to be? Service packs, updates or just the bare minimum. TIA

Diane

Firstly, you dont need to INSTALL XP at all. You can buy Acronis True Image Home and do an image backup of C drive to a protected storage area on the same drive then tell True Image to restore that exact thing to the bigger drive then swap them about and boot off the bigger drive and format the old C drive. You lose nothing, all passwords, favourites, email, you name it will be on the larger drive as it was at the time of the backup.

Secondly, you dont UPGRADE to win 7 from XP. You download and install Windows Easy transfer from Microsoft’s site and run it which will get all your important stuff and store it as a file on another drive. Then, you clean install Windows 7 and run the inbuilt Windows Easy Transfer from there and tell it to load the saved stuff from that file and it puts everything of value back in place on the new Win 7. It doesnt install programs such as Microsoft Office but it DOES save the things such as email addresses and passwords should you have used the full Outlook on XP and have it installed on your new Win 7 prior to having imported the XP data. I build new machines all the time and for those going from XP directly to Win 7 I do this all the time and it works out fine. The only way you can UPGRADE to win 7 is from Vista. Depending on how your Vista is running, it isnt always worth it anyway. A clean install is usually better.

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I bought a copy of the 3-pc family pack to install on a windows xp pc with an 80gb “C” drive and a 300GB “D” drive that is the secondary. Now, my spouse wants to make the larger drive the primary drive and the smaller drive the secondary drive which is a bit of a dilemma because I only have the upgrade media.

I realize I will have to install XP to the larger drive so that there is a licensed copy of Windows on the drive so I can use the upgrade media to upgrade to Win7. My question is how extensive does that win XP install have to be? Service packs, updates or just the bare minimum. TIA

Diane

Firstly, you dont need to “install XP” at all. Buy Acronis True Image Home, make an image backup of C drive to a protected storage area on the same drive then tell the program to restore that image to the larger drive. Now swap the drives about and format the 80gig. Everything you had on that original 80gig will have gone to the new one, warts and all, no matter what it was, email, passwords, you name it.

Secondly, you dont UPGRADE to win 7 from XP. You download and install Windows Easy transfer from Microsoft’s site and run it which will get all your important stuff and store it as a file on another drive. Then, you clean install Windows 7 and run the inbuilt Windows Easy Transfer from there and tell it to load the saved stuff from that file and it puts everything of value back in place on the new Win 7. It doesnt install programs such as Microsoft Office but it DOES save the things such as email addresses and passwords should you have used the full Outlook on XP and have it installed on your new Win 7 prior to having imported the XP data. I build new machines all the time and for those going from XP directly to Win 7 I do this all the time and it works out fine. The only way you can UPGRADE to win 7 is from Vista. Depending on how your Vista is running, it isnt always worth it anyway. A clean install is usually better.

Greg.

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