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General discussion

Upgrading to windows 7 (help)

by shualam Jan 17, 2010 4:51AM PST

Hi,

If I upgrade my Windows Vista Home Premium to windows 7 Home premium and something goes wrong during the installation, what do i do? Can i cancel it and have my vista back?

I have very little knowledge of installing OS.

I brought the student discount version of windows 7 from Microsoft.
I'm just scared because I never install any Operating System before and I don't have the money to afford another computer.

I called HP customer service for the same reason and they told me to get someone with more knowledge and...I don't want because they will just call me stupid and scaredy cat.

Discussion is locked

8 Posts
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Forgot to add specs
by shualam Jan 17, 2010 4:56AM PST

sorry i forgot to add my PC specs.

I have HP slimline s3720f
Pentium Dual Core
4GB of RAM
Vista Premium (64bit)

What else do i need?

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Let me share.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 17, 2010 8:01AM PST

I took a laptop with Vista 64 up to 7 Home Premium 64 (that family pack deal.)

Prep work:
1. Save an image of the entire system to the USB HARD DRIVE using CLONEZILLA.

My apologies here. This is not an offer to write a tutorial. You get to research words you never heard of on google or such.

2. Uninstall antivirus, firewall, all protection software!
I hope you can see why.
3. Uninstall some biometric logon software. It's non-standard and I bet could throw a monkey wrench into the works.
4. Uninstalled a few softwares I would never use again.

Done. Slip the 64 bit 7 upgrade DVD and answer a few question and 4 hours later it's running 7. I had 2 drivers MSFT didn't find so I hunted those down and I'm done.

Figure 6 hours from start to finish.
Bob

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Maybe...
by John.Wilkinson Jan 21, 2010 5:02AM PST

Early in the process, it may let you simply revert back to Vista with no harm done. Nearer completion, if something goes wrong, you may have an unbootable computer. Uncommon, but possible.

Best advice:
1.) Backup anything you cannot afford to lose.

2.) Have your HP recovery system (Vista DVDs) at hand.

3.) As Bob suggested, clone your hard drive to another hard drive, set of DVDs, etc. Your choice of cloning software here. If anything goes wrong you just restore the clone as if nothing ever happened.

4.) After a successful upgrade, create a new clone for future use. Keep updating it as necessary to mitigate the fallout should something happen.

Good luck.
John


P.S. Don't feel intimidated or afraid to ask for help; everyone starts somewhere, and no one wants to end up in a bad situation.

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installation
by jeff_windows_team Jan 21, 2010 7:06AM PST
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Windows 7
by RON HOW Jan 24, 2010 12:32AM PST

Be carefull I tried to load my laptop only to find it would not accept it. On checking Laptop makers web, I found out it was not possible to load a L10 with windows 7. I do not know if other older machines have the same problem! Some printers drivers need updating also.

Best wishes Ron

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windows 7
by jeff_windows_team Jan 25, 2010 4:20AM PST
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Success
by shualam Jan 27, 2010 3:44AM PST

Thanks guys! I followed the on screen instruction and i also use the Microsoft link and windows 7 came to life. No problem whatsoever...except few HP programs didn't came along.

I used the windows 7 adviser and found out that those programs are not yet compatible.

anyway i'm happy no problem...muhahahaa Happy

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win 7
by lizardo_manson Jan 29, 2010 11:23AM PST

wrong, XP still on sale, not on store but online specially ebay (original software).


Shaulam, did you tried using "Program Compatibility" that comes with Windows 7?

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