Is it a bad idea to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on an XP system?

Wenda,

Probably not a good idea in this case where the system has been seriously compromised by malware, the burning process needs to be performed on a clean system.

Maybe a USB installer might work, from the boot level, anything tried USB related, to the live system would be better from a SD card that is set to read only.

I would personally wipe the complete system and install from scratch anyway

I'm not sure, but you might be correct that it's not working due to being the 64-bit installer. Although, I would think that it would just say "this won't work". Still, try the 32-bit version of either 7 or 8 and try again.

Wenda said:

Does her machine run at all?

If so, you could try copying the iso to her machine and burning it from there.

Sometimes works, when a disk can be read perfectly in one machine but not at all in another.

Wenda.

Click to expand...

Barman58 said:

Wenda,

Probably not a good idea in this case where the system has been seriously compromised by malware, the burning process needs to be performed on a clean system.

Maybe a USB installer might work, from the boot level, anything tried USB related, to the live system would be better from a SD card that is set to read only.

I would personally wipe the complete system and install from scratch anyway

Click to expand...

Even if it wasn't full of malware, her CDVD drive is read-only, and I think it's a 2x or 4x drive at that. Keep in mind that this thing is a netbook from 2005.

Any good guides on installing from a 4GB SD around? I only have a 4GB SD. Anything else and I'm going to have to scrape some cash together and hit the store.

TwoCables said:

I'm not sure, but you might be correct that it's not working due to being the 64-bit installer. Although, I would think that it would just say "this won't work". Still, try the 32-bit version of either 7 or 8 and try again.

Click to expand...

Honestly, this is such a hassle that I'm considering just telling her that I can't help her. The system language is Chinese and the Windows desktop has been rearranged in a weird way by some software (so I can't navigate it at all) and she has zero tech savvy to help me with. I can't restore it to defaults because she has no discs on her. It won't read any DVD I insert. Her system is just barely makes the requirements for any OS newer than XP anyway.


So, it looks like I'm down to the 4GB SD card right now. Any suggestions? So far the only Windows 8 SD tutorials I can find were only tested on the preview version, and require 8GB cards. Besides that, I'm even finding people who say booting from an SD isn't possible. Would like to find a proper tutorial that would work with a 4GB card.

In the meantime I'm going to see if I can figure out a way to get her restored to the XP defaults anyway. If I can do nothing else, at least I can clean the damned thing out and make it operable.

And I'm going to make sure she doesn't download this "360" crap every again. It's some kind of popular Chinese "antivirus" that's just completely full of bullshit and looks spammy as hell. I'm sure it's packed with tons of crap you wouldn't want on your computer. The problem with Chinese software is that even the popular software is total rubbish, mostly malware, spyware, and adware.

One of the things that's really ticking me off is that even the BIOS menus are Chinese. I can't figure out how to start in Safe Mode or anything because the normal function keys are assigned differently on her computer and I can't figure out what the Heck I'm selecting.

You can try writing the SD card same as USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create - Windows 7 Forums

I think I'm gonna have to throw in the towel until I can get to the store and buy a USB.

I think my own SD port has a problem since is think any SD card I put in it is write-protected. I have some chassis damage actually, around the SD port. Probably some plastic got in it or something. Sunnuvabitch.

I'll try to get a 4GB USB. I should have one anyway, they come in handy. They're not that expensive these days either. I'll be back in like an hour or two after I grab a bite to eat and get the new drive.

For the record, I DID get the SD to work for me once, and copied the files over. I got it to work up until the Windows 8 splash screen on her computer, but then I got Win8 BSODed telling me the files were corrupt.

But yeah, since my computer is a bit screwed up around the SD port I can't rely on it.

Update : Okay, so I've bought a Kingston G3 32GB USB drive and copied the Windows 8 ISO contents to it after formatting is as NTFS.

I've booted Windows 8 setup from the USB successfully. I have chosen to Custom Install (since I'm wanting to do a clean install).

Now I'm faced with the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen. Four drives are listed. Here is the information :

Name--------Total size------Free space------Type
Drive 0 Partition 1: WINXP 20.0GB 5.0GB System
Drive 0 Partition 2: □□□ 55.8GB 548.0MB Primary
Drive 0 Partition 3: □□□□ 37.3GB 34.7GB Logical
Drive 0 Partition 4 35.9GB 33.5GB Logical

(The squares represent the squares that you usually get when you can't read certain characters from Unicode. I'm guessing that they're named in Chinese and this version of Win8 can't read them.)

All I want is for everything to be on a single partition, honestly. I used to know how to do this but haven't messed with installing Windows in a long time. Re-educate me?

Thanks in advance.

Edit : Nevermind, I remember now. I just deleted them all and turned the Unallocated space into a Partition. It created a second partition for Windows files that is 350MB large with 20MB used that is Disk 0 Partition 0. I am installing Windows to Disk 0 Partition 1.

Hmm...it appears to be stuck at "Finalizing your settings".

Update : It seems that the Finalizing part just took a long time. Upon further searching it was probably because the Finalization process involves saving the settings elsewhere and I live in China where, without a VPN, international connections are slow.

Anyway, everything seems fine so far. Now I'm going to install a program to make it easier to navigate, then install Chrome and then install new drivers for her.

Well it seems that it works. However, we've run into one issue with her keyboard. The 1, ~, and esc keys aren't responsive. Any ideas? Sounds to me like the keyboard is likely going to need replaced..

While we're at it, we may as well get her more memory. 1GB is utter crap and installing some more DDR2 memory shouldn't be too costly.

Alexander Moore said:

Well it seems that it works. However, we've run into one issue with her keyboard. The 1, ~, and esc keys aren't responsive. Any ideas? Sounds to me like the keyboard is likely going to need replaced..

While we're at it, we may as well get her more memory. 1GB is utter crap and installing some more DDR2 memory shouldn't be too costly.

Click to expand...

Yeah, being that it's 8 years old, I wouldn't be surprised if the keyboard is wearing out.

I don't now how to replace memory in a netbook, but that's a good idea if it will support more memory!

First I'm going to check if I reconnected the keyboard completely correctly when I re-assembled it after I disassembled it for cleaning it out.

The memory should be easy. Like most laptops, it's one of the easiest to expose. There's a section of the chassis that will come off from the underside for easy memory access, much like the compartments for the HDD and Wireless card.

Being that it's so old it'll only take DDR2 though. Should be cheap. Since we're using 32 bit Windows 8 I'll upgrade it to 4GB (2 x 2GB). There's no reason to go beyond that.

All she really uses this computer for is videos and messengers and general browsing anyway. I do have to admit that Win8 runs well for low-end systems. But I figure that's because it was practically designed for it (surface pro and tablets).

Plus, I think Windows 8 started from a clean slate with the intention of making it as light on a computer as possible for the best possible performance. As I understand it, I think all the other versions to date are just based on what already existed in a sense - just taking what's there and improving on it as much as possible instead of starting over. A friend of mine who is a developer and a programmer said that sometimes it's best to start over with a new version because then you don't have any excess garbage code or something like that and you can make it much faster and more efficient than what you had before.

And I agree.

Windows 8 vs Windows 7 is like this : One is really good and has a good UI, the other is the best but has a crappy one (for laptop / desktop users).

Hopefully Windows 9 has a better UI for home users and improves it's infrastructure even more. Again, they only really get it right with every-other attempt. Windows 9 will probably be good (I hope), especially since they've had time to perfect their new creation.

Anyway, well I'm pretty much done here. I've already updated everything on her computer and gave her everything she needs. I'll mark this as solved.

Now all I've gotta do is see if I can get this keyboard fixed and upgrade her memory.

Alexander Moore said:

And I agree.

Windows 8 vs Windows 7 is like this : One is really good and has a good UI, the other is the best but has a crappy one (for laptop / desktop users).

Hopefully Windows 9 has a better UI for home users and improves it's infrastructure even more. Again, they only really get it right with every-other attempt. Windows 9 will probably be good (I hope), especially since they've had time to perfect their new creation.

Anyway, well I'm pretty much done here. I've already updated everything on her computer and gave her everything she needs. I'll mark this as solved.

Now all I've gotta do is see if I can get this keyboard fixed and upgrade her memory.

Click to expand...

Well, a friend of mine who's in the know said he heard that Windows 9 will be even "worse"than Windows 8. It sounds to me like it might be 100% metro UI. That is, no more "desktop" or anything. It's as if Microsoft was trying to ease us into the change.

Of course, this is just what he heard.