Is it possible to delete Windows 7 64-bit from my C: drive but keep everything else (i.e. games, documents, programs) installed and unchanged? I've been thinking about buying a SSD once I have the money and installing windows onto that but in the meantime I have everything on one HDD.
In past experiences you can easily delete the OS from the drive if it's not the one active; if you install the SSD and windows onto it I see no problem in deleting windows manually although you'll lose the former program registry doing this, it might be possible to transfer these during the install but I have not tried that before.
Your data is the easiest part to transfer, as all you need is a simple copy and paste. I keep my data on a separate partition to make it easier to manage (with reinstalling Windows). Games are normally alright with the copy and paste method - apart from the ones that store serial keys in the registry. Some games provide a special tool (Company of Heroes for example) that rewrites the serial key into the registry. But Steam need the registry. Programs are very similar to the registry-dependent games. Most programs will work without the registry values, but you will lose the ability to uninstall them from Add/Remove Programs. To copy registry values, first find the values you need. They are likely to be in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE. Then right click on the keys you need and export them. Because of a limitation you can only export one key at a time, so it might be worth exporting the entire SOFTWARE key then filtering out unwanted keys manually. Remember to check in the Wow64 (or something) key if you have a 64-bit OS! Once the keys are exported, you probably want to filter/merge them. The export creates a file with a .reg extension. Open the file/each file in Notepad and remove the keys that you do not want, or merge files together with copy and pasting. It is a bit labour intensive but is worth it for the ease of use on the new copy of Windows. New copy of Windows installed! Old programs and games copied/on a different partition. Simply double click on the .reg file/files that you created before and hey presto, the keys are in the registry! OK, I just reread the OP. You have a 64-bit OS. So look out for the Wow64 key.
