Going from 32 bit to 64 bit, keep harddrive user files?

Ranger4 said:

sdowney717. You may have an activation problem if, you dual boot both versions, that are using the same installation package. Often the 32 bit & the 64 bit versions are packaged as 2 separate DVDs in the one package, to allow the user to select one of them & only one of them, but they are both covered by the one activation code.

I suppose it would, but I wiped the drive and installed 64 bit.
Had to copy 600gb over onto a 3tb drive.

Although the installer when selecting 64 bit win7 gave me an option of upgrading the current windows version on the drive.
What did that mean? I selected custom and deleted the disc partitions.

One thing noticed real quick, win7 32 bit updates, had lots of failures, 30% to 70% for success. While win7 64 bit, every single update succeeded, and glad to see full access to the 8gb ram now.

When you boot from a Win 7 installation disk and install on a partition that has Win 7 already installed it will move ALL files and folders to a Windows.old folder and install a new and clean version of win 7. All your data files will be on C:\windows.old\users"name"\documents (Videos, music etc). You can then move those files to your the new installation. Then you can delete C:\windows.old

Megahertz07 said:

When you boot from a Win 7 installation disk and install on a partition that has Win 7 already installed it will move ALL files and folders to a Windows.old folder and install a new and clean version of win 7. All your data files will be on C:\windows.old\users"name"\documents (Videos, music etc). You can then move those files to your the new installation. Then you can delete C:\windows.old

what about files outside of the windows system folders?

sdowney717 said:

Ok best. But not answering the question. Is there an option to not format the drive and just install the os leaving files there? I just installed 32 bit few days ago. And just noticed this.

In answer to your question, you don't have to do a clean install; you can just overwrite the Windows stuff. When you begin the install, you will have some install options; that will be one of your options.

There is always a risk of your losing stuff when you do this kind of install; but as long as your stuff is not stored in the Windows folder, you probably won't lose anything.

I strongly suggest that you do a backup of your hard drive before beginning this process. And don't do the backup with the built-in Windows backup tools; use a third-party program, such as Macrium Reflect Free.

How old is your hard drive? If it is very old (at least three years), then it is getting close to the time when you should replace it. I suggest that you remove your current hard drive and install a new hard drive, or perhaps an SSD. Then, with only that one drive connected (no flash drives, no external drives), do a clean install of Windows 7-64. Once you have finished the install, hook up your old drive as the secondary drive; then either use it as the secondary drive, or copy the files you want to the primary hard drive and then remove and store the old drive as a backup of your previous system.

sdowney717 said:

what about files outside of the windows system folders?

Please read the post again.
All files and folders from previous installation will be moved to Windows.old. ALL