WIN7 / Vista Home Premium dual boot - TRASHING ONE

Roddy · 20 Oct 2009

Hi

I have C Drive 250gb - Vista HP SP2 and, PARTIONED, also a W Drive 250gb - WIN7 RC7100

Boot Manager list WIN7 first, which is what I wanted and set via msconfig.

I think I am going to trash my Vista and install a clean WIN7 on C drive.

I am thinking to do this:

1. From within WIN7, go to msconfig and reset boot sequence to C Drive
2. Reboot. From within Vista, go to Disk Management and delete the W partition (and therefore WIN7) and then to resize my C drive to full amount of C/W size (500GB)
3. From within Vista, load in Win7 DVD, go to My computer and set off setup.exe & do a clean install...or do I have to change boot sequence thru bios first and reboot to the DVD drive to do this?

I have all discs/drivers for my other applications and they are all working fine on my present WIN7 drive

Or would I simply do an in-place upgrade?

I know I have to either purchase a new copy or an upgrade copy of WIN7.

Is my thought process above corret?

Rgds
Rod

Lordbob75 · 20 Oct 2009

Installing over Vista would be easier, and you could use my tutorial (Windows.old folder - Restore into a new installation) to do an restore from your Vista install.

~Lordbob

SnarkyTwit · 20 Oct 2009

Roddy said:

Hi

I have C Drive 250gb - Vista HP SP2 and, PARTIONED, also a W Drive 250gb - WIN7 RC7100

Boot Manager list WIN7 first, which is what I wanted and set via msconfig.

I think I am going to trash my Vista and install a clean WIN7 on C drive.

I am thinking to do this:

1. From within WIN7, go to msconfig and reset boot sequence to C Drive
2. Reboot. From within Vista, go to Disk Management and delete the W partition (and therefore WIN7) and then to resize my C drive to full amount of C/W size (500GB)
3. From within Vista, load in Win7 DVD, go to My computer and set off setup.exe & do a clean install...or do I have to change boot sequence thru bios first and reboot to the DVD drive to do this?

I have all discs/drivers for my other applications and they are all working fine on my present WIN7 drive

Or would I simply do an in-place upgrade?

I know I have to either purchase a new copy or an upgrade copy of WIN7.

Is my thought process above corret?

Rgds
Rod

I think the best way to do this is to boot from your 7 RC disk and delete the partitions before doing a clean install. Much more simpler. Just delete the partitions and go.

Snarks

Roddy · 20 Oct 2009

Snarks, this is what I think I am trying to do...I am going to delete the W drive, resize the C drive to reclaim what was W drive and then install WIN7 to the newly expanded C drive....

Lordbob...lemmie check your tutorial...I dont really understand your response....."installing over Vista..." that's what I intend to do....but a fresh, new install or an upgrade, THAT is the question!

Tks for responses guys!

Rod

Lordbob75 · 20 Oct 2009

Roddy said:

Lordbob...lemmie check your tutorial...I dont really understand your response....."installing over Vista..." that's what I intend to do....but a fresh, new install or an upgrade, THAT is the question!

Correct. This just simply installs Seven on the same partition as Vista. It will basically format the drive. However, you will have the Winodows.old folder, which will contain everything like user settings and programs. This can be restored from, or just deleted.

~Lordbob

gregrocker · 21 Oct 2009

There are two options with the Win7 upgrade disk: do an in-place upgrade of Vista which reinstalls your programs, files and settings, or do a Custom clean install which overwrites it and puts your files in a windows.old folder for distribution.

You can also direct the Custom upgrade to another partition or HDD which you can pre-format for an even cleaner install.

MS has also allowed the activated RC to be used to start an Upgrade so you could boot into your D:RC and since it is marked active use Disk Management or Easeus to delete your C: drive, format it and Custom clean install Windows 7 upgrade to the C: drive. After copying your files over to C: for D:, mark C: active and delete D: You then have an Upgrade installed to formatted metal, cleanest possible install.

Make an image so you never have to reinstall, but keep your Vista disks or image just in case - the RC can only be used as qualifying underlying Upgrade until it expires June 1.

Roddy · 21 Oct 2009

[QUOTE=gregrocker;318527]....MS has also allowed the activated RC to be used to start an Upgrade so you could boot into your D:RC and since it is marked active use Disk Management or Easeus to delete your C: drive, format it and Custom clean install Windows 7 upgrade to the C: drive. After copying your files over to C: for D:, mark C: active and delete D: You then have an Upgrade installed to formatted metal, cleanest possible install....

SO...I BUY a WIN7 Home Premium UPGRADE box for AUD about $170 , NOT a WIN7 NEW box for about AUD $299 ??

Many thanks
Rod

bobtran · 21 Oct 2009

I just did something like this....although I did it a little bit different.

1) Using Windows Easy Transfer I created a transfer file containing all my documents, music, video's, software config files, favorites, contacts, basically everything except the actual software programs themselves and the user profiles as they work perfectly in my Win7 RC install on partition 2 and put it on an external drive.

2) Import the Easy transfer file into my Win7 RC partition to combine all Vista and Win7 RC documents, email, etc.

3) Using Widows Easy Transfer I created a transfer file containing everything available to transfer from my Win7 RC partition including the user profiles, security, etc and put it back out on the external drive.

4) Do a "Clean" upgrade install on the Vista partition. Install all apps with basic defaults and no customizations.

5) Import the Easy transfer file from external drive which tells me any apps I need to install because I missed installing them. This gives me my acitvated Win7 install with all apps, config files for the apps, documents, music, video's, etc.

6) Verify..Verify....Verify that I didn't miss anything I don't want to lose on the RC partition 2.

7) Delete the 7100 RC partiton.

8) Add the unallocated space to the partition 1 Win7 install.

I did this because RC7100 is not acceptable as an upgrade platform and I didn't want to loose all my customizations. It even restored my wallpaper, taskbar, and links menu's exactly like they were on the RC partition. It only took 3 hrs from start of install until I had fully customize Win7 install.

This does not of course include the time to create the transfer files but with 40+ gb of data to transfer as well as configuring all my apps (Quicken, email, burning software, server connections, etc) I got back exactly what I had before on my RC partition but fully activated.

Roddy · 21 Oct 2009

Quote "I did this because RC7100 is not acceptable as an upgrade platform"

Well that bugga's me up then. As I mentioned in initial post, I am running RC7100...

oh well, a NEW AUD$299 copy of Win7 it is then if I want a clean install !!

Devaraj · 21 Oct 2009

You no need to remove vista from ur PC
u can set your system as a multiboot operationg system so
so you can use both
and as well u no need to upgrade ur windows 7
present winows 7 ulitmate enough
ok you can up date your windows and incease ur RAM
Then u will find the difference