Some time in the next 12 months I will buy a solid state drive. But for now to upgrade to Windows 7 from XP what should I do? I do own and use legit copy of XP and have that on manufactures disk from MS. Should i by the upgrade or a standalone?

I am thinking sometime in future I will replace the guts (motherboard and cpu) of my current machine.

Well are you going to install the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Win 7??

Just get a OEM copy. I think Win 7 64 bit Pro goes for around 129 and Premium 64 bit for around 99.

Pro and Above has "Windows XP Mode",


Or
You can Download VMware and the Converter
you can convert your current system to a Virtual Machine Image,
save the File to an External HDD,
Install Windows 7,
Install VMWare Player on the new machine
Load VMWare image from External HDD and have your old Windows XP running in a Window (minus some things (ie Direct3D acceleration etc).

Fresh install all the way.

Copy the docs you want to a big USB drive or an external hard drive then copy onto your fresh install.

That way you are not transferring over all the crap, bloatware and possible nasties as well.

The geek way to do the Win7 install would be :

• Download all the drivers for your hardware (incl printer/scanner/LAN/WiFi/RAID drivers etc.) (If SP1 wasn't included, SP1 too)
• Slipstream them to a single install with the LifeHacker or TechRadar guide.
• Store your hardly used Win7 DVD with code somewhere safely and create a "backup" of the product code, by mailing it to yourself as a zipped text file with an unlock code.
• Create an offline update and check the boxes for MS Security Essentials and Defender definitions.
• Check if you have all the codes for software you bought, which are installed on the XP system. If not, retrieve them with tools like Belarc, CD-KeyReader 1.3, ProduKey,RecoverKeys, MSKeyView or License Crawler.
• Run the install from the slipstream media.
• Run the offline update.
• Create a backup of the install.
• Install software.

...but I tend to be lazy and just do the Win7 install with a mix of points from above. For most pay software there is usually a freeware alternative available, so I don't need the "hunt for product keys" option. Although with a NAS, that's going to change.

I just bought and successfully installed win 7 premium 64 bit on a formatted hard drive. It cost me $89.00. I can send you the link. Send PM if interested.

That's genius, I had a feeling doing something like that was possible but hadn't really looked into it. I'm more familiar with Virtual PC, is it possible to do something similar using VPC?

i think Virtual PC, Virtual BOx, VMWare and all the others use the Same VHD Files(?)

Microsoft's virtual XP running on Win 7 does not support discrete video hardware acceleration so it's a no go for gaming, otherwise it works OK.

It used to require a CPU that supported hardware virtualization too but that requirement has been dropped I believe.

BTW Uriah, I also recently moved from Win XP to 7, it came installed on my new PC.

So far, Win7 rocks - it just works. Exactly what an OS should do, just work.

Only problems so far are persuading it to talk to the old XP machine on the network, and occasional browser crashes when with Flash-heavy pages. Probably driver related rather than Win7 issues.

ok, I bought WINDOWS 7 PRP SP1 X64 and a 'ZERTEX 4' 2.5" solid state drive.

My plan, is that I will unhook the data connection of my current hard drive. Connect up the SSD. Install WINDOWS 7 on the SSD.


Now just under what folder path might the current drivers located. I am really only concerned about the driver for the MS Force Feedback 2 joy stick. I hope that works with WINDOWS 7.

There is a few programs I want to keep but most I will just do a fresh down load.

I don't know what 'Slipstream them to a single install' means.
Nor 'Run the install from the slipstream media.'

And how do I create a backup of the install?

I figured out the driver thing. But I am wondering if I should deal with the drivers as I am going from windows xp to 7.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/151125/how_do_i_back_up_my_drivers.html

If your Going from 32-Bit Windows XP to 64-Bit Windows 7, I wouldnt be backing up any drivers as they will fail to install.

Well, I could not wait. Got SSD drive in and installed WINDOWS 7 PRO. What a pain. The install was not so bad. Getting other stuff back is difficult. Another post on that.

I recently reloaded Win 7 from 32-bit to 64-bit. It was a pain. As you said, the Windows part and the updates and drivers isn't too bad. Getting your programs and data back on there smoothly is something else.





The Jedi Master

to be able to update any docs and such I had on my old hard drive I had to first copy them to the new drive where I have WINDOWS 7 installed and then copy them back to the old hard drive.