upgrade: 7 home pre. to 7 pro on new laptop no discs

I bought a new laptop w/7 home premium. Its a gateway so there are no discs that came with it. The hard drive has the repair / re-instal info on it or you can make your own cd's at stat up.

So here is the deal. I have not turned it on yet. I want to have 7 pro for the network back up etc. I also want to upgrade my desk top from vista ultimate to 7 pro as well as my wifes laptop from vista home to 7 pro. I do not want any of the pre installed junk on the new laptop. I will need the system drivers and I wonder the best way to get them with no documentation. Also I've read horror stories about the file that has the reinstall info in it dirtying up the water with a clean install. I have copies of XP pro, and an upgrade to vista ultimate from vista home both licensed and completly legal.

So does any one have an idea about the best approach for getting the system drivers and what 7 pro product should I buy. OEM, full, upgrade, ? I of course want to watch the $ but I want to stay basically above board also.

Any help about making a sound decision would be apreciated
:sarc: Thanks, Darell

Welcome to SF!

All of your computers qualify for the Upgrade license, which is cheapest.

You may have trouble doing an In-Place upgrade. If it won't let you, do a clean install instead.

Here is a tutorial you will find helpful: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

The installer is driver-complete, with newer arriving quickly via optional Windows Updates.

Find any missing drivers on the Support Downloads webpage for your model computer, or back up Windows/System32/drivers and driverstore files to browse to after install.

You can clean reinstall the same version using Product Key on sticker if you can borrow or otherwise obtain a Win7 installer. Any installer can be used after unlocking hidden versions using ei.cfg removal tool.

To upgrade within Win7 you'll need to use Anytime Upgrade, or clean reinstall using higher version retail DVD and key. There is also a workaround to in-place upgrade to another Win7 version if you need it, but it would defeat your purpose of getting rid of factory bloatware corruption.

Hello Jonathan_King,
Thank you for the quick reply. The new lap top is 64 bit and the other two computers are 32 bit so I'll have to do a clean install with them also.When you say "in place upgrade" I assume you mean on the laptop. Will that get rid of all the pre installed junk? If it did that would be handy for the systems drivers being retained.

Darell

Yep, a clean install will get rid of all the junk.

Thank you gregrocke,

So the upgrade disk reads the system and take care of the drivers on its own?
Darell

The Win7 installer is the same whether upgrade or full retail - only the key determines which version.

To advance way beyond XP and Vista, MS spent a fortune getting all of the drivers into the isntaller or quickly available via optional Windows Updates. There are some exceptions but they are becoming rarer. Performance might dictate a different driver, but also rarely.

Thank you gregrocker and Jonathan_King for you input and help



Darell

How it turned out

Well Hi all,
I bought the upgrade disk and went after it. I booted the laptop for the first time and went straight into the bios and set it to boot to removable disk. Rebooted to the upgrade disk got rid of the partitions and formatted the hard drive and loaded up Windows 7 pro with out a hiccup. Then I went to Gateways web site and I'll give them this, by entering the serial # of the laptop I got all applicable updated drivers, chip-set/system/software. In some cases there was more than one to choose from, so a trip to device manager helped to straighten that out.
All in all it was a bit of work but for me it was well worth it. It now is my laptop not Gateways.
The tutorials were spot on and the way Brink and others have set them up and linked them together to further the information you may need is SPOT ON. What a resource this forum is. I'm glad to be part of this community.

Thanks to All, Darell

dedet said:

Well Hi all,
I bought the upgrade dick and went after it. I booted the laptop for the first time and went straight into the bios and set it to boot to removable disk. Rebooted to the upgrade disk got rid of the partitions and formatted the hard drive and loaded up Windows 7 pro with out a hiccup. Then I went to Gateways web site and I'll give them this, by entering the serial # of the laptop I got all applicable updated drivers, chip-set/system/software. In some cases there was more than one to choose from, so a trip to device manager helped to straighten that out.
All in all it was a bit of work but for me it was well worth it. It now is my laptop not Gateways.
The tutorials were spot on and the way Brink and others have set them up and linked them together to further the information you may need is SPOT ON. What a resource this forum is. I'm glad to be part of this community.

Thanks to All, Darell

Click to expand...

You done a good job, nice hear good news.

Glad to hear that you have it all sorted ... Now, a suggestion, image your system drive and save it to a seperate drive/partition ... its a lot easier to restore an image than it is to do a complete reinstall of the OS... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/663-backup-complete-computer-create-image-backup.html?ltr=B

Good work, Darell.

The only caution I'd add is that the Win7 installer and subsequent optional Updates is the top authority on drivers in Win7. I would only get drivers from Gateway website if they are missing in Device Manager.

On Nvidia chipsets, a missing co-processor driver does require the factory chipset from Gateway website.

Thank you gregrocker,
I ran into that situation last weekend with the chip-set drivers if I remember correctly. Its all a blur now. I will figure to use a windows driver when offered then.

Hi Tews,
I have plans to do the image. I have just a couple things to do to get it exactly the way I want it. Thank you for the suggestion and thank you for the links to do it.
I also have entered my system specs. My windows index # is 4.3.
Darell