What are my options to upgrade from Windows XP x64 whilst leaving my files and apps mostly unmolested? It's my main rig hence me putting it off for a very long time. Last time I tried I think I only had the option of doing a fresh install. But I think that was Windows 7 which cant upgrade anything except Vista. Soooo, you reckon I can slap Vista x64 over my XP x64 briefly then slap Windows 7 x64 over that? Anyone know what installs over what? Doing a fresh windows install and putting everything back manually is not a good option for me tbh. Cheers
what you could do is upgrade to vista.. then shrink the partition using vistas disk management and create another partition on your drive.. move all your important files over to the new partition (D : ) and install win 7 fresh on the primary (C : ) you can use something like partition magic to do this too instead of the vista upgrade path
Second the above never heard good things about inplace upgrading from xp to vista. If you have or have acess to a spereate hard drive that would make the process easier.
no matter what a PITA it is to reinstall everything, in the long run a fresh install is ALWAYS better. it will be more stable, and for longer. there is less chance of everything going all pear shaped for no apparent reason. honestly, i have never, in almost 20 years of computing experience, seen an upgrade go smoothly.
Thanks, ... You are all telling me what I already know (from my 17 yrs of computing experience) and is my normal mantra (usually do a fresh install about every year in fact)... but I have too much on the go most of the time now and need it up running more or less all the time, so taking the time to do it is what has put it off for so long. Hence me trying to take the softies way out this time Cheers
sorry. old habits and all .... cause every time a family member or friend, or someone at work does an "upgrade" they usually come crying to me about how bad it sucks. conversation usually goes like this: windows sucks! huh? i upgraded (the perfectly pristine, custom, XP pro install with custom ghost dvd) windows to vista and now it a) is slow b) wont boot c) my wireless wont work d) acts funny. upgrade, huh? what did daddy tell you about upgrades? and here it reverts to sounding like a 5 year old caught pulling the cat's tail again. so it's nothing personal, and not trying to be condescending, but after a while, it's a knee jerk reaction. upgrade bad, fresh good. pretty much my mantra. ive even got the tier one guys at work trained that if they cant diagnose a problem and fix it or find out how, or who, in under 20 minutes, reimage the damn thing.
