Windows 7 - Carlos,Bobby,Dominic and other helpful people

Asked By Drew

21-Nov-09 10:47 AM

Here is the situation .  2 home computers running Vista 64, one home premium
and one business. First off yes both will run there respective versions with
no problems.  Now here is the question Could I purchase the family pack of
win 7 home premium and upgrade the existing vista home premium and clean
install the other? Do you recommend buying win 7 home premium upgrade and
one win 7 professional upgrade? On my vista business 64 I currently dual
boot with the win 7 rc and really do not care if I have to wipe and
reinstall but the wife's computer well Lord help me if I screw that one up
LOL.. All help would as always be appreciated. I am not a fan of the new
forums and prefer these newsgroups as I have been dealing with them for
years.. Thanks in advance.....

21-Nov-09 11:13 AM

A detailed comparison of the features in the editions is at
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus_compare.asp. Only you can
decide if Home Premium will fulfill all your business requirements.

You can use an upgrade version to upgrade Vista Home Premium.
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_upgrade_03.asp explains how. The
upgraded installation may work well, but I would recommend a clean
install. The upgrade process is reported to take a long time: you
probably will not save time over doing a clean install, and there is the
risk that the upgraded installation will not work well.

You can do a clean install with upgrade media. See
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp.

The family pack is for 3 computers. You would have a spare license. It
could be used for a laptop, or you could build an HTPC.

21-Nov-09 11:28 AM

Dominic.. Thanks for your response.. as for the vista business I purchased
and installed on the very first day vista came out and only purchased the
business version because I did not need the ability to have media center as
a part of it. That is the reason for considering the home premium now..
Unfortunately they do not allow a upgrade from vista business to win 7 home
premium, Hence the question of the family pack.

21-Nov-09 11:30 AM

I concur with Dominic.

Below are a few more links to Microsoft's website with information bout
Win 7 versions and upgrading:

http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-vista-to-windows-7

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7

The last one about going from XP to 7 and using Windows Easy Transfer is
good.  I use this procedure to upgrade my wife's computer from XP Pro
(32-bit) to 7 Home Premium x64 (64-bit) and was pleasantly surprised how
well it worked.  I did customize the info saved for transfer since we
use Firefox and Thunderbird and wanted to retail the data and setting
for these.

You will need to re-install programs, but virtually all her
personalizations were retained to include her desktop.

21-Nov-09 11:48 AM

You're right about not being able to do a direct upgrade, but from most
info posted on the web it is better to do a clean install from Vista.
Most comments claim better performance when comparing upgrading versus
clean install.

21-Nov-09 12:01 PM

See http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/upgrade_01.asp. Vista Business
qualifies for a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade but needs a custom
install to achieve the upgrade - you cannot upgrade in place to a lower
edition.

If your wife's Home Premium has been running for several years, I would
strongly advise a clean install.

21-Nov-09 12:16 PM

Hers is about a year and a half old and is a HP touchsmart IQ804.. Would I
not lose all the hp touch capabilities??

21-Nov-09 12:53 PM

Have you run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor?
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15&displayLang=en

You need to confirm that Touchsmart is Windows 7 compatible. The driver
is at http://www.nextwindow.com/nextwindow_support/windriver.html.

Any software you need can be downloaded from
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us%E2%8C%A9=en&os=2100&product=3762887.
The specs at
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01549576&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3762887
suggest that Windows 7 should have all the required drivers, except for
the Avermedia TV card, which may be available from Windows Update.

21-Nov-09 01:03 PM

You would have to ensure you locate the software and/or drivers needed
for the Touchsmart IQ804.  If seems HP may have made available most, if
not all, available @
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=3762887&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us

Depending how long you have had the Touchsmart you might be better off
purchasing the Win 7 Upgrade from HP since it would be optimized, or
customized, for their hardware; AKA OEM.

21-Nov-09 01:07 PM

P.S.

I overlooked the time you said she had the Touchsmart.

I did find a link at HP about upgrading to Win 7:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01778879&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&lang=en&product=3762887

22-Nov-09 05:31 AM

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=4063&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us%CC%A9=en&product=3762887

everything is there, including the NextWindow multi touch driver.

I upgraded a very well used (dirty) touchsmart.


Barb Bowman
MS-MVP
http://www.digitalmediaphile.com
http://digitalmediaphile.wordpress.com

22-Nov-09 05:31 AM

not necessary.


Barb Bowman
MS-MVP
http://www.digitalmediaphile.com
http://digitalmediaphile.wordpress.com

22-Nov-09 05:32 AM

the touchsmarts upgrade beautifully.


Barb Bowman
MS-MVP
http://www.digitalmediaphile.com
http://digitalmediaphile.wordpress.com

22-Nov-09 10:25 AM

Bobby. so here is another question maybe you can help with, Since I now dual
boot win7 ultimate rc and win vista business on my computer and I do not
want to make a mistake and leave the computer non bootable how would I do
the clean install? Currently c: is win vista and j: is win7.. When I restart
my computer it shows a choice as to which I want to boot from with win 7
first and win vista second. Thanks for your help.

22-Nov-09 11:38 AM

Drew:
Before you start, of coarse back-up your data, then assign a name to
each drive (c: Win Vista, j: Win 7 Etc for each drive). The reason for
naming the drives is to make sure that you do not accidentally choose the
wrong drive during installation. When you boot from the Win-7 DVD it will
list each drive and name for you to choose where to install. You would
replace Win-7 rc with Win-7 rtm, after the installation is complete you
could use EasyBCD or VistaBootPro to rename the operating systems on the
boot screen. Have a great day.

--
Dennis Pack
Win-7 Enterprise x64, Win-7 Professional x64.


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22-Nov-09 02:46 PM

Drew,
Sorry for letting you down, I have been out taking an "unplugged" break the
whole weekend. Hope the other guys have taken good care of you!
Carlos

22-Nov-09 02:59 PM

"Unplugged is always better than plugged up!!!. Thanks Carlos.

22-Nov-09 03:01 PM

Dennis, my plan was of course to format the win7 rc and probably the vista
one as well and start fresh however they are on the same physical disk just
different partitions. Now what would be your advice?

22-Nov-09 05:09 PM

Drew:
I do not know if Vista installing after Win-7 will effect the boot
manager for Win-7. If you are starting with a blank hard drive or going to
clear the existing hard drive I would recommend setting up and naming the
partitions during installation. The downside is to verify that after you
setup the partitions is to pick the right partition before starting the
installation.

--
Dennis Pack
Win-7 Enterprise x64, Win-7 Professional x64.