My Personal Windows 7 Upgrade Experience

Martin | Oct 28, 2009 | Comments

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Ever since I began playing around with the first beta releases of Windows 7 I was confident that Windows 7 would be the next operating system for my computers. I had been running Windows XP since it came out many years ago and while it was still a great operating system it missed several of the important updates that Windows Vista and now Windows 7 introduced. I quickly pre-ordered Windows 7 from the Amazon UK shop as it was much cheaper there than in my country’s Amazon shop. And since I wanted to use an English version anyway I decided to purchase Windows 7 Professional. The main reason for that edition was merely that it was the last edition missing in my collection. I had purchased an Acer Aspire Timeline 3810 laptop earlier which came with a free upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium and my attendance at a Windows 7 conference in November would supply me with Windows 7 Ultimate.

I knew that there was no direct way of upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 but since I always felt that upgrades would carry all the weight and excess of the old operating system the decision was quickly made to do a clean installation of Windows 7. The main problem with clean installs is to find a way to move the data from the old installation or computer system to the new one. I’m talking about essential stuff like documents, photos, specific applications, emails, web browser bookmarks and everything else that was accumulated over time.

The first thing that I did was to create a priority list that contained files and applications that I needed to move to Windows 7. It usually is easy enough to install the applications anew but it is more difficulty to transfer the settings and data to the new system. It is usually up to the individual to research possibilities to backup data and restore it on another computer system. It was easy enough for me as my main applications were Firefox and Thunderbird, which both could be backed up and restored easily with MozBackup. It took a bit longer to research the information for some other applications but I was eventually able to backup the data and files that I needed.

Hardware drivers were another aspect of the migration that I needed to take care of. I downloaded all relevant drivers for the computer hardware installed in my computer system. This included audio and video drivers, drivers for the network adapter, computer monitor and basically anything else that was connected to the system.

I initiated the Windows 7 installation from within Windows XP and had to select custom installation. This was outlined in a small sheet that was distributed with the Windows 7 Professional box. The installation went smoothly. It took between 30-60 minutes before the Windows 7 desktop was shown. A quick check revealed that two hardware devices were not recognized by the operating system. One of the devices was the network adapter which I was able to install with the drivers that I downloaded previously. The other devices was the Creative X-Fi sound adapter which also installed fine after supplying the drivers.

My overall Windows 7 upgrade experience was excellent. It took less than four hours to update to Windows 7 including all the preparations in the old system.

How was your Windows 7 Upgrade or installation experience? Did yours run as smoothly as mine or did you run into issues that you had to fix?

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About the Author: Martin Brinkmann is an Online Journalist from Germany who discovered his love for technology in high school. He is currently working as a freelancer for several publications and runs his own Internet website Ghacks

  • My install from the RC to the final version went smoothly. Strange, that it didn't detect your Creative Soundblaster X-Fi. My installation detected it, downloaded and installed the driver without me having to go to the Creative site to download it. Bizarrely, my installation didn't detect my Microsoft Lifecam Vx-600 webcam (go fugure), this, I had to download manually, but it installed without any problems. My Logitech webcam (Communicate STX) tried to download in install a driver for it, but during the install, spit out an error message that said the software wasn't designed for my operating system (nice). This was also the case during the install of the RC. However, I discovered that Logitech has an "all-new" version, which I downloaded in installed. It also came in a 64bit version as well (it's about time). The driver for my ATI 650 PCI TV tuner wasn't detected either, but I was expecting this. The only way to install it is to manually point to the driver directory within the device manager. Otherwise, it work just fine. No other problems to report, other than the fact that my desktop machine now goes into sleep mode all by itself, as it should. This wasn't the case with the RC. An annoying side-effect, however, is that when you set up a media extender, the sleep mode is automatically set to "never", without a warning message.
  • I upgraded 6 PCs at our house from Vista to Windwos 7. All upgrades went smoothly: five in-place upgrades and one from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Pro that required a reformat and reinstall. Details of the upgrade to our Media Center PC are here: http://thunor.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!71C238B5... All but the latter were completed in about two hours each.
  • I dont want to do in place upgrades so I have to free up some hard drive space and move date first before i start upgrading from rtm build.. I don't think their are many differences from RTM to Retail if any..
  • Stephen
    There are no differences between the RTM and retail versions - they are the same thing....

    Stephen
  • chieftain20
    I never actually installed an upgrade. I found the legit Windows 7 Home Premium RTM and installed that about 50 days before the actual release date of 7, and once my copy of W7 came in just activated the install with the key and it works.
    GRMCHPXFRER_EN_DVD This is the DVD's name of the 64-bit W7 upgrade disk.
    GRMCULXFRER_EN_DVD And this is the W7 RTM one I downloaded.
    Only difference between the two is a whopping 12KB and one of the letters are different. So I don't think that is anything to be concerned about. But I haven't had any problems with that copy.

    And as far as my desktop goes, I just got a copy of my College's version (and key) of W7 Pro and installed the 64-bit of that in about 20min. and had it up and running no problems at all.
  • Name
    I didnt upgrade yet because those bastards at dell told me i would get a free upgrade but now it turns out that i have to pay €20 administration and shipping fee which I cant pay because i dont have a creditcard
  • nice. i got my copy of ultimate at the conference your talking about this monday in san diego...very nice

    apparently, theres a nice easy way to use an upgrade disk to do a clean install. on a clean drive, use upgrade disk to install windows, dont enter the key, once finished on the c: drive, create a new folder titled 'windows.old' enter key and activate. and there ya go...no double installs, no huey, no pain! enjoy
  • rsriram
    My experience was very good on Toshiba Satellite L305-S5919:

    1) Downloaded x64 RTM Ultimate bits - Hacked ISO to get the version selector (I needed Home Premium)
    2) Did a clean install on my x32 Vista Home Basic
    3) Waited for Upgrade media
    4) Implemented registry hack approach by Paul Thurott (more on this on his site)
    5) Rock-n-roll.

    More detail on my approach at http://bubhutsa.blogspot.com/2009/09/clean-inst...
  • I'm still on build 7260 with my production data. It's been so good to me that I haven't had the need to upgrade even though I have w7 ultimate.

    Thats how good Windows 7 is..

    Onuora
    http://www.windows7update.com
  • Installed the RTM 32bit in august or september on old desktop (which i am probably using as a server now a days)
    Got a acer 5738 on sept 24. Immidiately installed windows 7 RTM over that too. Since the laptop is faster, the experience is much better than the desktop experience. But still, Windows 7 was faster whereas XP was slow on both the computers.
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