Windows 7: Migrate to Windows 7 at Your Own Pace

Migrate to Windows 7 at Your Own Pace



By Rick Broida
October 29, 2009 10:28 AM ET

PC World - Although I've been playing with Windows 7 for a couple months now, I'm not quite ready to dive in. I want to make gradual move, keeping my Vista-based PC up and running while I transition to the new OS. Why? I have my reasons. For one thing, I don't want any driver- or software-related surprises--or worse. Early upgraders are already reporting issues; read "Windows 7 Upgrade Woes Mount: Endless Reboots and Product Key Problems" for a look at what's been going on.

What's more, I don't have a full afternoon to devote to the tedious process of offloading my data, installing Windows 7, reinstalling all my apps, restoring the data, and so on and so on.

So I've come up with a plan. Instead of wiping my system for a fresh install or doing an in-place upgrade from Vista to 7, I'm getting the best of both worlds. First, I partitioned my hard drive--which, thankfully, has more than enough room to accommodate both Vista and Windows 7. Then I loaded Windows 7 onto the new partition, which gave me a fresh install (always the best approach, in my humble opinion).

After that, I need to make sure Windows 7 works well with all my hardware. Assuming it does, I'll start installing the apps I use daily and copying over my data from the Vista partition. Eventually, after a few weeks (or even months), I'll remove the Vista partition. I'll need to figure out how to make 7 the primary partition so I don't run into boot issues, but that's a problem for a much later day. This week I'll tell you how I set up a new hard-drive partition and installed Windows 7.