Understanding Windows 7 upgrade paths and Chart
Windows 7 has earned itself a great deal of respect and it hasn’t even been released to the stores yet. Lots of Vista users are waiting for the release of Microsoft’s next operating system upgrade, not to mention the die hard Window XP fans who refused to upgrade to Vista.
The Redmond Software Giant will be offering Vista owners the right to purchase Windows 7 Upgrade, which is considerably cheaper than a full install. Here’s an example, Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade will cost $120, if we purchase the full version that will command a $200 price tag. The same applies to Windows 7 Professional Upgrade which will set you back $200 and the full version will run you $300, Windows Ultimate upgrade will costs $220 and the full version will cost $320.
Some users will perform this upgrade without any issues; your programs, documents, files and settings will remain the same coming from certain versions of Vista. Unfortunately, the remaining portion of users will have to install from scratch ( a full install ) thus you will need to back-up all your important data like music, photos, documents files etc which is recommended even if your performing an upgrade.
To further enlighten this task at hand Microsoft has released a chart to assist us in which upgrade path is available for the version of Windows you have currently installed. We will get back to the chart in a minute which is posted at the bottom of this article.
Be advised, you can not mix architectures if you want to upgrade without a clean install. Therefore if you have a 32-bit copy of Windows on your machine, you will have to upgrade to a 32-bit version of Windows 7 and the same applies for 64-bit.
We have a few more things worthy of mention here as well. If you wish to upgrade from Windows Vista Home Basic or Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional, there is a way around this. You will have to perform an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium, then use Windows Anytime Upgrade to get Windows 7 Professional. Doing this will cost you an additional $90 for total of $210 which is $10 more than a direct upgrade and still better than purchasing a full Professional license at $300.
So if you have Vista and will perform the upgrade to Windows 7, it should be a fairly easy and a straight forward process. Thats because the Windows 7 shares most of the underlying infrastructure of Vista, which installs itself on your current machine quickly and smoothly, saving all your files, folders, documents, settings and programs.
However the Windows XP fans will first have to erase everything on their hard drives in order to install Windows 7. This means you will lose your current file and folder configuration, and all your programs.
You will be able to transfer this data manually, or automatically during the Windows 7 installation process prior to deletion. If you choose to manually preserve your personal files, documents, photos and so on, you will have to take a long and tedious process of saving your precious data to an external hard drive and then move them back after the Windows 7 install.
If you choose to automatically move your data for safe keeping Microsoft has taken a step further to make saving this data a bit easier. The upgrade process will offer a free “Easy Transfer” program that will automate the process of moving your personal data to an external drive, and then back to your computer after Windows 7 is installed. Unfortunately this program only transfers your personal data and not your programs.
Then of course the problems don’t stop there for XP users. After moving all your personal data back to your newly installed Windows 7 hard drive, you will also have to re-install all your programs and restore all the software drivers for your printer, web cam, and all other hardware add-ons you have. This part can be a serious pain in the you know what as it will require locating the original program disks, or downloaded program installers plus re-installing the numerous updates that have been released since these original disks came out. Then there’s the drivers, Microsoft says it will automatically replace your older drivers with newer Windows 7 compatible versions, but be prepared that some may not function properly.
Another option to move your personal data for safe keeping is using a high speed USB 2.0 data link cable to perform peer-to-peer file transfer between desktop/laptop or PCs then of course move the files back to your newly installed Windows 7 machine’s hard drive, it’s also a really fast method to move the data especially if you have a large amount to relocate.
Netbook users face yet another issue. Microsoft has stated Windows 7 will work on netbooks, however most of them lack a physical DVD drive, which is needed to run Windows 7 installation disk. Therefore those users will have to purchase or borrow an external DVD drive. Another method would be get a friend to copy your installation disk to a 4 GB Flash drive and perform the installation process via the flash drive.
XP users may have another possible path to Windows 7, though it’s not recommended. I have not tried this but it’s been suggested that you could upgrade to Vista using a borrowed disc, skip the activation, and then run the upgrade to Windows 7. This method will take more effort than a fresh install and no doubt results will vary. In any event what ever you do be sure to back-up any data you want to preserve before installing.
Now for the chart Microsoft has given us.
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Versions of XP and Vista are listed down the left side, and the three versions of Windows 7 which come in 32 bit and 64 bit are listed across the top. The blocks that intersect in a green box saying “In-Place Upgrade” can be upgraded in the simplest form that keeps your files, settings, and programs intact from your current version of Windows.
All of the blocks that intersect in a blue box, will require what Microsoft calls a “Custom Install,” also known as a clean or full install. As I mentioned above this means you will have to temporarily move your personal files to an external drive or another computer, wiping your hard drive clean, perform the Windows 7 install, then of course moving your personal data back and re-installing all of your programs from their original disks or download files, install all updates and patches that were issued since the original software was released.
Thanks for reading and have a good day.
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