QUESTION: about installing WIN7 on Vista partition

rakcs · 16 Jul 2009

Let's say i have 2 partitions, Vista and Win7. If I'm now ready to get rid of my Vista and Install Win7 final release over it (for example), what's the first step I have to do with the Vista partition? do I have to reformat it first? what are the steps on doing a clean install on the vista partition. thanks!

and BTW, I have read that the RTM was released, but some says that it's not the final RTM. so what's the forums conclusion about it? final or not?

Uber Philf · 16 Jul 2009

ill answer your first question: What you can do, to make this as simple as possible, boot from your W7 disc,and when all the partitions are shown, where your Vista install is, format it, then deleter the partition, so you only have 1, then proceed with installation, which will install W7 onto your HDD. And your second Question, i dont know lol.

Night Hawk · 17 Jul 2009

Actually you have two options and you wouldn't reformat a partition and then delete it you would simply delete it. The problem with deletion of the first would then be the lengthy process of moving the second forward to the front of the drive and then expanding from there to fill in the void. Not good!

So what are the best two options? The new 7 disk type upgrade or full version will play another role as well.

1)reformat both existing partitions to see a clean install of the finished 7 on the first primary, use the second for a storage/backup partition, and call it a day. or

2)nuke both right off the drive entirely to see single large primary replace the existing pair. No hassles with moving one primary back and then the need to expand that out and the benefit of saving quite a bit of time!

Uber Philf · 17 Jul 2009

Opps, missed the "i have 2 partitions" my bad.

Night Hawk · 17 Jul 2009

Oh well no biggie!

The important thing for rakcs to understand that right now we're all running "TEMPORARY" installations of 7. Once the "finished retail" product is available and each has selected and bought their own copy there will be the best and preferred option to perform a clean install on a fresh primary. To save the existing data as well as partitions on a particular drive then many will elect the upgrade option.

If this had been a question about upgrading a Vista installation the simple answer would be run an upgrade disk to install over as part of the upgrade of Vista where it would be possible to roll back to the previous installation.

For rakcs however he is looking to see a clean install once 7 is out and wondering about how to take care of the present dual boot seen now. The one method for seeing a clean install of 7 with an upgrade disk will see some requirements like verfication that you already own a Vista disk or when the installer detects a genuine copy of a previous version(Vista) already installed. A major Windows 7 upgrade question gets an answer | TechBlog | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle