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Windows 7 questions

K

Karol3

n00b
Joined
Apr 26, 2011
Messages
14
Windows 7 general questions
Hey, I want to upgrade my windows vista 32 bit to windows 7 64 and I have some questions.

First my steam games. i have 3 hard drives and I have STEAM on my storage drive, when I install windows 7 on my LOCAL disk 1 will I need to format disk 2 and 3 or will the files on them be left untouched?

I have a overclocked q9450, will a clean install affect my OC or is it all saved on the bios?

When I do a clean install will I have to reinstall my MOBO drivers or will that be done automatically once Windows 7 is installed?

i have never done this, any other tips or tutorials are welcome, thx.


Also can any link me the version I should get on amazon? I will upgrade to Ivy bridge when it comes out and I read that some Windows 7 versions can only be used once, I am interested in windows home premium.




PC specs:

q9450 oc to 3.0ghz
4 gb corsair ddr2 800
ASUS P5E Deluxe Mobo
570GTX
600W psu
Drives: 750gb, 120gb, 2TB
Windows VISTA 32 bit
Edit/Delete Message
 
Let's see here... another long post, but answered in order:

1) When you do the installation of Windows 7 x64, you can't upgrade - you'll have to do a complete clean installation. You can upgrade to a 32 bit (x86) edition, but you can't upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit; it requires a complete wipe and clean installation of the OS.

2) In the process of the installation, you'll want to disconnect every hard drive in the machine except the one you're going to use for the OS itself - the other drives and the data on them will remain safe and sound. I cannot speak for Steam as I'm not a gamer, but I've got to believe that as long as you keep the Steam content separate from the OS drive/system partition itself that you should be able to bring everything back up when the installation is done with minimal muss and fuss (and then reattach the other drives, of course). I'm sure there's more info at the Steam forums about reinstallation of the OS and keeping everything "in place" so it works when you're done, or someone else will chime in on this one.

3) Overclocking settings have no bearing on the OS, but you might consider returning the system to stock settings for everything - seriously - until Windows 7 is installed and up and running 100% functional, then start a small overclocking scale at a certain speed and test it, then repeat as required till you get back up to the full overclock you currently have. This is just a precautionary measure - it has nothing to do with the OS: it's just a good habit to create for yourself because if there is something going on and Windows 7 chokes on it, you want to make sure you're starting with a solid stable foundation in the first place so you can troubleshoot it step by step if such troubleshooting is actually required. I suspect you'll be fine, but there's the suggestion anyway.

4) Windows 7 has more driver and hardware support than Vista did, and even if there's something that's not supported by the basic OS itself (meaning the driver support included on the DVD), as soon as you're done with the installation I'd recommend hitting Windows Update and grabbing every driver from their first - this ensures a solid stable installation, and then hit Windows Update again, and again if necessary. Do that as many times as it takes until Windows Update says "There are no updates available" and at THAT point, go install manufacturer provided drivers that could potentially be more current - but use the Windows Update drivers first to get a solid installation; when that's done, get more current drivers direct from the hardware manufacturers if they are available.

5) As for tips, etc, I'll say this now because I am pretty much the guy that started it years ago: leave it alone. :)

That means leave the OS alone; Windows 7 is not like any other OS ever made, it's not like Vista on the inside in spite of a lot of people believing it's just Vista with a fresh coat of paint. It's not, and you'll discover that as time goes by. It will outperform Vista on the same hardware so, that machine will feel like a new machine in a few weeks after Superfetch tunes itself to your usage patterns and application behaviors.

Want to find something, anything at all? No need to hunt-and-click: click the Start button one time to bring it up, then start typing the first few letters of whatever you're looking for, seriously. Want to alter mouse settings? Click Start, type mou and you'll see a list of mouse related stuff appear to select from - there's no real serious need to dig into the menus anymore. This is one of the best aspects of Windows 7, and something I use constantly - click Start, type a few letters, there's what you want, right there on the menu, another click and wham, it's ready to go.

But leave it alone, seriously. It'll run just fine on its own and get faster as time goes by, but you have to let it do what it's designed to do. It's not XP, so don't go digging in thinking tweaking is necessary; that shit is old school and Windows 7 will just suffer for it.

As for what edition to get, that's your choice. Personally I prefer Windows 7 Professional myself. It has everything Windows 7 Home Premium has, and more, but it's not quite as large (if that matters, but we're only talking about about 1.5GB of drive space overall difference) as Ultimate. Ultimate "sounds nice" but really it doesn't have much that most people require - even enthusiasts like most of here at the [H]. Windows 7 Professional is more than enough, but it's a tiny bit more expensive than Home Premium. But you stated you wanted Home Premium so, if that's what you want, get it - Professional offers some more Admin tools, and also some other things that may be of no interest to you at all.

Is the price difference worth it (between Home Premium and Professional)? I think it is, but you'll have to decide for yourself.

What you'd be looking for at Amazon, Newegg, or Fry's or some other online retailer is the OEM System Builder Edition, which is a lot cheaper but comes with no product support from Microsoft and no box either. Also, you need to specifically choose the x64 64 bit media to purchase - the OEM System Builder Edition only comes with one piece of DVD media, it's either the 32 bit or the 64 bit, you don't get both. Only the retail boxed versions of Windows 7 (any edition) come with both discs: 32 and 64 bit installation DVDs.

And yes, the OEM System Builder Edition is designed for installation one time on a given machine; if you decide later on to start over or even build a new machine as you mentioned, and you want to use that Product Key again, more than likely it'll fail the activation because it's a one-shot. But, you can get another key from Microsoft with a phone call, basically using the "little white lie" method and telling them your motherboard fried itself so you had to buy a new one and you rebuilt your computer. They'll provide you with a new Product Key, disable the original one (so it can't be used anymore for activations), and then you're all set to do a new installation. It's a bit lame I suppose to use it for more than one install, but Microsoft doesn't really have a problem with it in the long run, as long as you're not upgrading 10-20x a year and asking for new keys every other week. :)

Good luck, and if you have questions, just ask...
 
wow thanks for the in-depth answer. Now I have win 7 on my laptop and will 64 bit programs automatically install in the 64 bit program files folder, or will i need to specify which folder the program belongs? And will programs installed on other drives have to be 64 bit only, since there is no 32 bit folder?
 
In general, 64 bit apps (as long as they're done right by the software maker) will be installed in the Program Files folder on Windows 7 x64, yes. Sometimes with older software, even 64 bit, you might find it gets installed in the Program Files (x86) folder but that's how "the old way" worked - if you install something and that happens, and the program works just fine, leave it alone still applies here to.

With respect to apps in general, just install them and use 'em, nothing else needs to be done on your part. You can install them wherever you want as long as their installer gives you the Custom or whatever option to choose the target destination. By default, they'll usually always go to the system partition meaning C: and into the appropriate Program Files directory.

As long as things are working as expected, leave it alone is the order of business one should follow. It's your OS, do whatever you want with it, but the recommendation to leave it alone will always remain. :)
 
ok, thanks i am glad to hear it. So i press f12 to boot from CD or do i need to do it manually in BIOS, but i read win 7 restarts to finish installation so will I need to change it back to boot from Hard Drive?
 
You'll only need to worry about booting off the DVD one time to get the installation started - once the initial partition setup and file copy is done, the second boot takes place from the hard drive itself. So yeah, you can use the function key that controls the boot device the first time if you want so you don't actually have to alter the boot device priority in the BIOS - it's basically a one-time action so the function key is more than adequate.

To save time and make things even faster, if you've got a 4GB or larger USB stick or Flash drive/thumb drive/etc you can use this tool from Microsoft to transfer the contents of the ISO (if you get the actual physical DVD, use ImgBurn to make an ISO of it so that Microsoft tool can function) to the USB stick - boot off the USB stick and the installation will take about half the time, usually under 15 minutes.

You'll be fine when the time comes...
 
oh thanks, my windows 7 copy should arrive Thursday and ill post how it goes. .
 
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