Windows 7: Complicated Situation?

I will kick off this thread by stating that I will unfortunately need some pretty point-blank instructions. I am practically computer illiterate when compared to many of the users on SevenForums. With that being said, here is what is going on as far as installation questions:

Earlier last year, a friend of mine and myself set up a dual-booting system on my Dell Inspiron 6000 (I bought it in June of 2005) which booted XP and Windows 7 RC. I'm not sure if I recall the partition being a virtual environment-type partition or not (see, I really need some help ). Naturally, the RC expired but I loved using it. So eventually I got the money to buy the upgrade (I'm a Master's student) and I have bought the Home Premium version.

From the various readings and tutorials on SevenForums, it looks as though I need to install a clean version. I've backed everything up that was on the Windows 7 side to an external hard drive, so that's all been taken care of. My question is, where is there a step-by-step tutorial that will show me how to install the Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade while maintaining the partition between it and the XP?

If there is any more information that you need, please let me know and I will do my very best to get the answers for you. Thank you in advance for your time and patience.

Welcome!

It is possible to do an in-place upgrade from the RC to final, but I do not recommend it. Doing a clean install is always a good idea.

Boot from the DVD, and install Windows 7 to the partition the Windows 7 RC is on now. Do not format or delete any partitions.

That's just about it. You should not lose your dual boot, but if you do, let us know, and we will tell you how to restore it.

Hope this helps,
~JK

Hi WNG, welcome to the forums
Have you tried this tutorial:Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Hello writingnerdgirl;

Before any of us can guide you, we need to know how your hard drive / dual boot was setup. The easiest way to do that is to go to the Disk Management Utility in Windows 7 (type disk management in the start search box) and take a snap shot of the drive map and attach it to a post. If you need help doing that, please look at these:

Screenshot and Upload using MWSnap

Screenshot with Paint

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...en-forums.html



Cheers!
Robert

@ Jonathan_King: That sounds pretty simple -- thank you very much!

@ wallyinnc: I found that tutorial earlier but I wasn't sure if it would be alright for my situation, seeing as how I already had a partition up and working (again, my computer illiteracy is blatant). But it looks like it's the right one to work with. Thank you!

@ iseeuu: Is this helpful? Thank you for taking the time to look things over for me.

You are welcome writingnerdgirl.

Per your snip, you have Windows 7 on the second partition (size 19.67G) so that is where you want to install Windows 7 (you did backup everything you need, right? a clean install in that partition will erase everything that is there now). Write down the partition size, that is how you will need to identify it when installing.
As you are installing Windows 7 after XP, it should take care of your bootloader. If not we can help.
And don't worry, your knowledge of computers is not as bad as you think. I could post a snip only after about 300 posts...

One remark: you have pretty limited space on your hard drive. If you could clean up your XP, maybe you could shrink that partition and create more room for windows 7, if that is the OS you will be using and saving files to that partition. If so, this is the time to do it, since if you try to move the partition to the left after installing Seven it might not like it and you can have problems.
Just a suggestion, you don't necessarily need to do that.

Yes that is very helpful, thank you. From the info you have provided, it looks like you can safely install 7 following the "Custom Install" path to the same partition containing your 7RC. Your RC files will go to a folder named Windows.old, which you can remove later if not needed with the Windows Cleanup tool. I would suggest to you to boot to Windows 7 and use the Easy Transfer Wizard to save your user settings to your external hard drive. It simplifies restoring your user accounts to 7 after the install.

Your dual boot setup should not be affected. I assume you are using a menu like this:



Please feel free to post back with any questions?

@ wallyinnc: Ah, that eases my mind quite a bit -- good to hear the computer knows to do things that I wouldn't dream of telling it to do!

And I agree -- looking back at the snip, I'm surprised my XP hasn't screamed at me yet. I'll be sure to free up some space, just for good maintenance. Thank you once more!


@ iseeuu: Awesome! And yes, that is pretty much the same menu that I have when I get the choice to boot into XP or Windows 7 (I think you're psychic ). Okay, so what I do from here is:

1. Use Easy Transfer Tool on Windows 7 to back user settings up onto my external hard drive
2. Restart my system, but not before I insert the installation DVD
3. Choose "Custom (Clean) Install"
4. Choose which partition I want to put Windows 7 in, how much space I want in there
5. Installation will take care of things from there

Does that sound correct?
(EDIT: I ought to follow instructions from the tutorial that wallyinnc gave me http://http://www.sevenforums.com/tu...dows-7-xp.html here, yes?)

See, you do know a lot (and are organized and detailed, that never hurts!)
Your plan sounds good to me. Just remember you will have to reinstall all programs because of the Clean Install. windows Easy Transfer will preserve your files and settings, but not the programs.

I think you might end up with 3 entries at the boot screen, it will probably add Windows 7 and leave "Windows 7 (recovered)" or "Windows 7" twice there, although one is not pointing to anything (Robert, correct me if I am wrong).
In that case you can edit your BCD and clean it up. Let us know if it happens.

Regarding your question: yes, but you start from item 3, since you already have a partition created. Which means you are basically just doing a clan install, here is the tutorial for that: Clean Install Windows 7

Correct. You have less than 20GB of space in the current 7RC partition and you will use it all for 7. You only need to select the partition, you will not need to specific size. Wally has pointed you to an excellent tutorial for you to follow.

As far as the boot menu, lets cross that if necessary.

Cheers!