I’ve installed W7 over 50 times and I haven’t run into any major issues so far myself. However, I keep hearing from and seen others with problems doing the upgrade option to W7. Mostly hardware compatibility issues and software problems, especially with some XP programs. Almost all of these problems can be avoided however, with some simple preplanning. If you’re going to do the upgrade yourself, don’t just jump into it and pop the DVD in your system and fire it up.
These 3 tips will make the process smoother and hopefully error free:
- Before you even get started, download the Windows Upgrade Advisor and run it. This will give you an excellent indication if your hardware can even run W7. Plus, it will also tell you what software on your current machine will have problems running on W7 and what to do about it. Just print the report out or make take notes for later.
- Use the Windows Easy Transfer to migrate your files and settings. Using this tool has the same effect as a full backup of your files and settings. If you have Vista, this tool should already be installed. For XP upgrades, use migsetup.exe in the Support\Migwiz directory on the W7 DVD.
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Note: get and use a good-size external USB drive for the migration. It will save you a lot of time and you can use the same drive later for backups. I use this one: Toshiba 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR250E03X
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- Do a “Clean Install” of W7. Even if you’re upgrading from Vista and especially from XP. This should include a complete reformat of your main hard drive.
Other Resources to read:
Paul Thurott’s great “Step-by-step guide to Windows 7 setup”.
Learn more about Microsoft’s Windows Upgrade Advisor
Good Luck.
