Windows 7: Win 7 upgrade strategy

I'm running Vista 64 and plan to do a clean Win 7 install 10/22.
I've upgrade before, but always manually backing up up the necessary files and settings. I have an external drive.

But what about Easy File Transfer?
Could I install Win 7 over Vista and use Easy File Transfer?

1. Install Win 7 as an upgrade

2. Do an Easy File Transfer to my external drive (to take advantage of Win 7's more robust Easy File Transfer)

3. Format C and do an Clean Install

4. Use Easy File Transfer to restore my previous files and settings off my external drive.

Think it will work?

I did Windows Easy File Transfer on an earlier Build of Windows 7

It worked very smoothly

149gb backed-up to easy transfer file on ext HD.

Transferred in & everythings worked with NO problems

Here is the link to the Tutorial

Windows Easy Transfer - Transfer To & From Computers

" Doc "

Bill, your idea sounds good and logical. I myself have no experience with EFT and I am seeking advice. Please let me know if it works well. Tks

The tutorial makes it look easy. My computer has two user accounts, mine and my wife's.
Do I have to do the file transfer under each account?

I want to say that one of Win 7's EFT features is that it does all accounts at once. But I'm not sure...I'll search the web..

Thanks,
Bill

According to this website, yes, EFT asllows you to do multiple accounts at once.

Inside the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility | ZDNet Photo Gallery

Glad you found that on ZDNet

Here is my one Big EFT of 149gb on an external HD

Hello, Bill.

Not wanting to tell you how you should do the migration, I just want to tell you how I've done it already a couple of times and with a couple of computers. My method is maybe a little bit unconventional, but it is a easy, reliable way to assure you can transfer absolutely everything to your new OS. It takes just a few clicks:

First, I create a full System Image of my Vista system using Vista Backup and Restore. It creates a virtual hard disk file plus some xml-catalog files to X:\WindowsImageBackup\Y\Backup Z , where X: is the drive where I save the backup image, Y is the name of my computer and Z is the date backup image was created.

See the images:




When I've done with Windows 7 installation, the first thing I install after virus protection and firewall is Virtual PC and Virtual XP (free download here). Using Virtual XP or any other virtual machine, I then mount the Vista System Image (a vhd-file, virtual hard disk) as a second hard drive to this virtual machine. This tutorial explains how to do that.

After that, I have access to everything I had on my Vista. The Vista backup image is now shown as a hard drive on the virtual machine:




Every file and folder. I like to do it this way because doing so I have no need to think what to transfer; it saves absolutely everything from the Vista system, I can always retrieve any file or folder I need. In worst case scenario I can also use this system backup image to restore Vista.

Notice please: also some applications can be transferred this way, but mostly only portable ones which don't write anything to the registry.

Good luck with migration!

Kari