Windows 7 update
 

I presently have Vista on my HP laptop
I can download Windows 7 upgrade from the Microsoft website.
My question is if I do it is it worth it ?
Will it change any of my settings?

Thanks in advance

Brian

I have switched two machines from XP to Vista and after the learning curve really like the difference.

There are some things that I do not like, like they force you into making everything on the network W7 if you are going to network them, but other than that am very happy with it.

BTW, I would never "just upgrade" something like this. Save your good stuff, format and then do a completely new installation.

Thanks Joe for the reply. On the Microsoft website it says if I have Vista I can get the updated Windows 7 as opposed to a complete install.
I'm not the most tech savy guy so I don't want to get over my head.

Brian,

Glad to help and one reason for doing a clean install is that it gets rid of all of the crap that has accumulated on the hard drive over the years. A clean install uses only what W7 wants or needs for right now, and there is none of the old XP or Vista stuff left over that does nothing to help and takes up space on the hard drive.

If you have a choice, for me there is no choice. Its a bit more work but ends up being a better and faster installation, with more room on the hard drive for you.

Joe

That makes sense. If I do decide to do it I will do a complete install.
Thanks again.

Bear in mind if you do a dump & reload that you will lose 3 things: Contacts, all email & your Favorites (favourites to Canucks). You MUST save these before you dump on a separate memory device outside your hard drive.

But I do agree with Joe. A clean install is important. Upgrades carry a lot of unwanted & un-needed trash over.

I am lovin' Win 7 . . . but I never did Vista.

Ian

Just backing up the C:\User directory (C:\Documents and Settings for XP and earlier)wil do it for most people...

The OP uses Vista. XP is as you noted although you do have to poke around to find them. The contacts are in the address book: {user}.wab, email: outlook.pst & favorites have their own directory.

In Win 7 (and probably Vista too) it is in the User directory under {user}. I renamed my new build Win 7 file to outlook.old & copied the outlook.pst from my XP system into the same directory. Outllook opens, searches, finds & loads all of the old email. I didn't lose a thing. For contacts, I just pointed Outlook to the old file via my network & it imported them.

Ian

Edit: Wayne's BBS software didn't like the angle brackets . . .

Is this a free upgrade, or do you have to pay for it?

Ugh, I hate them both. Crappy interface - they tried to copy mac, but in typical Windoze fashion they way over-complicated it. And it keeps asking "are you sure?" way too many times. I just bought my first mac a few months ago, and spent all of 20 minutes learning the UI. So simple and easy. My wife had Vista, now has 7, and it's just a bloated, overly-busy ripoff of Snow Leopard. I've still got XP on my office PC, and it's still working fine.

It seems Windows is sort of like 911s - every other (or close) generation is good, and the ones in between are bad :)

The primary reason to upgrade to Win 7 Pro from Win XP Pro is that XP is going to lose its support soon. Win 7 Pro will be supported through 2020. XP has had a good run and has been a great Operating System for 10 years. That is like FOREVER in computer years.

My latest computers are all Win 7 Pro x64. I will build my drafting machine tomorrow night. I will be rebuilding my wife's computer in the next week or so, and she will go from Win XP Home to Win 7 Pro. My 2 netbooks are XP but I expect I'll upgrade them Win 7 Starter or Home shortly.

If I decide to do it I can download it through Microsoft. It's not a free upgrade.
The update was around $129
The complete download was around $230 (I think).

In that case, I'd only upgrade if you are unhappy with Vista. $129 or less is what I'm paying for the OEM disk with license for building my new machine.

I just looked at the Microsoft Support website. XP Pro will lose ALL support in 2014. I guess I'm not upgrading the Netbooks. :)

Brian,

Are you close to a Fry's? They had a sale on W7 recently and I picked it up, full DVD for $79.

Might check around and see if you can get it on DVD for cheaper than MS is selling it for.

Joe

James,

Have you found a good way to network XP and W7? I can get the computers to talk with each other but the printer and other devices will not share, and it says in the W7 help that both of them have to be on the same "homegroup" and thats not possible between W7 and any other OS from what I have found.

Joe

Not sure what you meant by this but definitely not true that all units have to be Win 7 to network.

I have XP, Vista, Win 7, Win 2003 Server, Ubuntu, etc all networked together.

Homegroups only work if both are 7. I just shared the XP drives & they appear on a Workgroup network share.

Ian

Great, now how about you show me how to share a printer on the computer that is using W7 with another computer using XP?

Never said that you could not get the drives to access others but everything I have seen says that you cannot share printers and make an active network unless you are on the same "homegroup" and XP and W7 cannot do this.

Joe, I use fixed the IP addresses of the things like printers and shared drives on the system. I set my router to start giving out addresses at 100, and the addresses under 100 for fixed addresses.

So, my Network Hard disk is xxx.yyy.zzz.47

One printer is xxx.yyy.zzz.75

The second one is xxx.yyy.zzz.85

I also fix the addresses of the routers I use as extra access points around the house, and put a label on each, so I can access them and their settings.

Instead of trying to access the printers with the LAN name settings, I use the fixed IP address. You can do the same for any computer that is a desktop, fix it's IP address.

To access a shared drive, you map to: \\xxx.yyy.zzz.add\share_name where "share_name" is the name given to that particular share

For a printer, you simply substitute the fixed IP address for the printer name. And if the shared printer is attached to a fixed address PC, you use the same format as above for the shared drive: \\xxx.yyy.zzz.add\shared_printer_name