Windows 7 to XP

You will have 32Bit, but for piece of mind click Start then right-click Computer and select Properties. This will tell you if you have installed 32 bit or 64 bit.

   Note

64 bit compatibility is dependent on whether your CPU has 64 bit architecture

I would also look at downloading the latest nVidia drivers for your GFX card

NVIDIA DRIVERS 260.99 WHQL

1 thing you could try is disabling desktop composition...

1, Right-click the game icon and select Properties
2, In the Compatibility tab select Disable Desktop Composition
3, click ok

This will cause Windows 7 to default to the standard theme, no transparency or special effects, thus allowing for more memory allocation for the game process.

If you are playing older games which you think are laggy, you may either have to get a new video card driver or run those games in compatibility mode.

Compatibility Mode

And you may have to disable the eye candy on Windows 7, so you can reserve more resources such as RAM for your games. I do have a system with just 1GB RAM and it even feels faster than XP and Vista, but I think I tweaked and maintained it well enough to make it look good and perform nicely at the same time. I have Quake III Arena (which is a 10-11 year old game) still installed, I have run it in compatibility mode and it works with no lags. I even watch live TV in it with Windows Media Center and it can still take it.

I did not see you state what kind of processor you have. And yes, there are times we have to move on with newer and better hardware to make the best of computer performance.

If you have a Windows 7 installer you don't need third party software to do a complete wipe of a Hard Disk Drive / SSD, have a look through this information below and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.


After you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media, use Step One of this tutorial at the link below to do a wipe (secure erase) to the entire Hard Disk Drive / Solid State Drive.

• Then if you do not want to create the new Windows 7 "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #2 to create, format and mark Active a single 100GB partition to do the installation to.
• If you do want to create the "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #3 to create, format and mark Active the System Reserved partition and then create and format the 100GB partition to do the installation to.

Either way, running the "clean all" then creating and formatting the partition(s) using diskpart will get you the best possible space to do a clean install of Windows 7 to; you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the HDD / SSD or create additional partitions after the installation completes if you choose.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

DISKPART : At PC Startup

Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version