upgrading from vista to 7

to start, im not extremely computer savvy. I probably know move than the average person, but by no means am i a pro.

i have a dell inspiron e1505 (however the system says I6400???) with no modifications to it. its got a 100GB hard drive thats got about 27GB free, 2 gigs of RAM, and intel core 2 T7200 2.00GHz processor. it came with and is still running windows vista home premium with SP1.

i got a copy of windows 7 professional 32-bit from my school. on microsofts website it says i cannot upgrade to 7 pro from vista home premium...

Upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

however, when i called microsoft customer service, the guy said i can. i dont have any means to back up my files, so i kind of need an upgrade rather than a full install. is this guy an idiot or am i misunderstanding the website? what can i do?

oh one more thing. can i partition the drive and dual boot vista and 7 with my current hardware? the CS guy also said that if i dual boot, 7 can access all the files on the vista partition without problem. was he correct in this? if so, i may just dual boot. and supposing i were to dual boot and later decided i didnt need vista on the system anymore, would i be able to safely remove it without losing my files?

Big Ry said:

to start, im not extremely computer savvy. I probably know move than the average person, but by no means am i a pro.

i have a dell inspiron e1505 (however the system says I6400???) with no modifications to it. its got a 100GB hard drive thats got about 27GB free, 2 gigs of RAM, and intel core 2 T7200 2.00GHz processor. it came with and is still running windows vista home premium with SP1.

i got a copy of windows 7 professional 32-bit from my school. on microsofts website it says i cannot upgrade to 7 pro from vista home premium...

Upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

however, when i called microsoft customer service, the guy said i can. i dont have any means to back up my files, so i kind of need an upgrade rather than a full install. is this guy an idiot or am i misunderstanding the website? what can i do?

Sounds like the guy over the phone might have misunderstood you. To perform an upgrade both operating systems must be identical for example:

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit - upgrade to - Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit

If both systems are not identical in this way its an invalid upgrade path and you would have to perform a custom install:

"If your current edition of Windows Vista can't be upgraded to the edition of Windows 7 that you want to use, you can still install Windows 7 by using the Custom installation option instead. However, the Custom option doesn't preserve your files, programs, or settings."

Now if you preform a dual boot and would like to access your files from your other operating system and vice versa just navigate thru your explorer to the partition where you installed the OS go to Users and then you can see your documents from there (you might need to be in admin mode for this:))

Hope this helps

Shinobi73 said:

Big Ry said:

to start, im not extremely computer savvy. I probably know move than the average person, but by no means am i a pro.

i have a dell inspiron e1505 (however the system says I6400???) with no modifications to it. its got a 100GB hard drive thats got about 27GB free, 2 gigs of RAM, and intel core 2 T7200 2.00GHz processor. it came with and is still running windows vista home premium with SP1.

i got a copy of windows 7 professional 32-bit from my school. on microsofts website it says i cannot upgrade to 7 pro from vista home premium...

Upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7 - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

however, when i called microsoft customer service, the guy said i can. i dont have any means to back up my files, so i kind of need an upgrade rather than a full install. is this guy an idiot or am i misunderstanding the website? what can i do?

Sounds like the guy over the phone might have misunderstood you. To perform an upgrade both operating systems must be identical for example:

Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit - upgrade to - Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit

If both systems are not identical in this way its an invalid upgrade path and you would have to perform a custom install:

"If your current edition of Windows Vista can't be upgraded to the edition of Windows 7 that you want to use, you can still install Windows 7 by using the Custom installation option instead. However, the Custom option doesn't preserve your files, programs, or settings."

Now if you preform a dual boot and would like to access your files from your other operating system and vice versa just navigate thru your explorer to the partition where you installed the OS go to Users and then you can see your documents from there (you might need to be in admin mode for this:))

Hope this helps

thanx alot. yeah, i figured that guy was probably just not understanding me. he was kind of trying to rush me off the phone too

well for the dual boot, will my other programs (i.e. iTunes, Nero, Limewire, Blackberry device manager, etc) have issues accessing these files? and will i be able to remove vista at a later time while preserving all the current files on it?

Big Ry said:

thanx alot. yeah, i figured that guy was probably just not understanding me. he was kind of trying to rush me off the phone too

well for the dual boot, will my other programs (i.e. iTunes, Nero, Limewire, Blackberry device manager, etc) have issues accessing these files? and will i be able to remove vista at a later time while preserving all the current files on it?

Well Ideally since your accesing just files the programs installed on the current OS where your coming from won't have a problem with that.

About removing Vista it would be best to back up your files as a precaution since anything and everything wrong always happens when you make changes to your OS.

Better sure than sorry!

Shinobi73 said:

Big Ry said:

thanx alot. yeah, i figured that guy was probably just not understanding me. he was kind of trying to rush me off the phone too

well for the dual boot, will my other programs (i.e. iTunes, Nero, Limewire, Blackberry device manager, etc) have issues accessing these files? and will i be able to remove vista at a later time while preserving all the current files on it?

Well Ideally since your accesing just files the programs installed on the current OS where your coming from won't have a problem with that.

About removing Vista it would be best to back up your files as a precaution since anything and everything wrong always happens when you make changes to your OS.

Better sure than sorry!

crap lol. well i was just looking at walmarts site and they have some reasonably priced HDs. im broke, but i guess i should get 1 :/

If you can free up enough space and want to put Win7 on a second partition, create that in Disk Mgmt by shrinking Vista, create New partition formatted Primary NTFS. Install either from Vista or by booting Win7 DVD. We can help you later when you need to remove Vista.

If you get a second HD, then you can make it easier to later remove Vista by unplugging Vista HD during install.

When replugged after install it makes the drives independent and booted via the BIOS HD boot order and the F-key given on first bootup screen for Boot menu.

If you leave both plugged, Win7 will configure the dual boot menu which makes the drives interdependent and harder to remove Vista later.

well now im thinking i may just do a clean install. my buddy says he has an extra external drive, possibly 500GB. so if i can get that, i can back it all up and just do a clean install of 7. then if theres too many issues with 7 i can always reinstall vista. but that brings a new problem. as i understand it, some external hard drives arent 7 compatible. is there any way to tell if they are or not?

also, as for freeing up more space, is there any way to see what the largest files on the system are? if i could find a couple very large files to delete, that would free up space pretty easily.

Look at files in Explorer, delete the ones you know you don't need.

Plug in external to see if it is recognized. In addition to files, you can back up an image using new Paragon free backup software so Vista can be restored at any time if you need it.

Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition - Free Download
Clean Install Windows 7