I have a dual boot of Vista and 7. My vista is in C:\ and my 7 is in L:\. Can I store my Vista in a Window.old folder if I have have Win7 installed in another drive? If so, how?
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Strange but doable.
You'd need to Custom install Win7 over Vista which would place Vista's files in windows.old folder situated in Win7 drive root.
But, you can neither count on a windows.old folder definitely being created, or it being able to roll back to Vista if you later try that using this method: How to restore a Windows 7-based computer to a previous Windows installation by using the Windows.old folder
If you let us in on what your purpose for doing this is, maybe we can suggest an alternative plan.
Hmm, that's a strange request indeed. I can only imaging that you want to either preserve an image of Vista or do some data sharing. But for both situations there are easier solutions. I am really curious what your intents are.
Hey guys, thanks for replying! My situation is I want to use Windows 7 from now on and put Windows Vista in a .old folder because if I ever want any files from Vista I could just copy and paste to Windows 7. Forgive if I sound naive, but is there an easier way to do this?
It is much easier. Open your Vista partition (in Windows7 Computer), navigate to the folder(s) you want to access in Win7, right click on it and go to "include in Library". Then you have it in the Win7 library of your choice. That, of course, assumes that you keep your Vista around.
If not, copy all the Vista files to an external disk and go from there.
A third solution would be to create a seperate data partition for the Vista files and park them there. See this 12 minute video tutorial.
In all 3 cases you can work with "Include in library".
Thanks again for replying, whs. I think that sounds about right except I don't want to keep Vista around. I want to put my Win7 OS in the C:\ drive IN PLACE OF Vista.
EDIT:-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok. Forget I asked this question. My new question is: If I delete my Win7 (L:\) partition and custom install Windows 7 onto the Vista Partition (C:\) without formatting it, will it install on top of Vista, delete Vista, or move Vista into a .old folder?
Thanks in Advance. You guys have been so helpful so far!
If you do a clean install, you will not get windows.old. You get that only with an upgrade (which I do not recommend) - too many people had probems with that.
And what about the second and third solutions I suggested. That you can keep around without having to keep Vista.
PS: I keep Vista because there are some programs that just do not want to work in Win7 - but that may just be my configuration.
Actually you will get windows.old folder ONLY if you do a clean install, as an in-place Upgrade keeps all of your files, programs and settings in place.
As long as you don't format the HD, doing a Custom install of Win7 over Vista should generate a windows.old folder in the C: drive root where all of the files from Vista will be stored.
In the future, dragging and dropping files is a much easier and more compact way to back up your files. In fact, doing any install such as this one you are doing requires that you back up your files for safety. There is no guarantee window.old will be created e;very time.
Then how about if you do a Custom install in the C Drive with Vista installed? What would happened then? Is there any difference?
It should create a windows.old folder as long as you don't format the partition during install.
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