Solved Time for an OS re-install

[richlars]

UGGGGG!!!! I hate doing this, but it has been forever since I did a re-installation of the OS. I have had a few buggy things happening but never consistently enough to seek a solution. In the past, no matter how I have thought i have had my ducks in a row, I always seem to come into problems with license keys, remembering passwords and such.
Are their any guides on preparing for this so that getting back up and running is as painless as possible?

Thanks, Rich

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If you have any intentions of moving to the "free upgrade" of Windows 10, you might delay until that's available in a few weeks.

Locate your Windows Product Key. Write it down.

Locate all Product Keys for all other purchased software. Write them down.

Locate all passwords. Write them down.

Identify all folders holding personal data and copy those folders and everything inside them to a separate drive that will not be involved in the clean install.

Locate and back up bookmarks and any local email.

Go to your motherboard manufacturer's web site for your motherboard model. Find and download the Ethernet driver aka NIC driver. Put it on a USB thumb drive. Windows should supply this during the clean install, but this is a fallback in case it isn't supplied by Windows. You'll need it to establish an Internet connection immediately after the clean install.

Make a list of your most often used software--including anti-virus. Those are the items you'll first want to install. Download up to date versions of anything that's free.

Prepare to spend some hours immediately after the install at Windows Update.

You might make a Word document with step-by-step instructions to yourself. Typing out the steps will probably remind you of other things to consider.

Buy a fifth of I.W. Harper and put a knife in your teeth.

You can probably survive with doing just the above items, although there are dozens of other things that you could do---you'll think of them the more you ponder the situation.

 

[AddRAM]

Why aren`t you making disk images ????

 

[richlars]

Thank you so much ignatzatsonic! Some great pointers there. I am a bit nervous about Win 10 and making the full jump right away. My job involves AutoCad and if there is ever a program that will balk at an OS update it is AutoCad. But I am getting the latest version of AutoCad so hopefully it will go smoothly although I have seen a lot of troubles so far with those trying to install on the beta version. I am going to make a spreadsheet with all of the info and keep it on a flash drive so I can refer to it as I go from my laptop.
One thing I have learned in the past is that Microsoft doesn't like my licence key so I always end up using the telephone method of activating.
@AddRAM, Forgive my ignorance, but what would making disk images do for me other than a back-up of my system? The bugs I have seem to be more of an annoyance than anything, such as being unable to connect to the internet after an auto-update. Recently i received an intermittent BSOD during the booting process after installing an Epson Scanner driver, but it cleared itself before I could start investigating it. The worst thing was that in taking on some work from a big corporate firm that wanted me to run some of their in house software that made several changes to Lord know what, I really had troubles with AutoCad working with files from anywhere else.
Thanks again for all of your help,
Rich

 

[AddRAM]

If you had an image of the system before any problems started, at least you could use that to start over instead of a fresh install, much faster.

 

[richlars]

Yes that makes sense. A good habit to get into.

 

[gregrocker]

Everything is compiled here to get and keep a perfect Clean Reinstall Windows 7 based on tens of thousands of installs we've directly helped with here, and has been used by 1.5 million consumers without a single complaint. They have the best installs of Win7 in the world.

 

[richlars]

That is exactly what I was looking for!!!! Thank you very much!!!!

 

[richlars]

This really helped a ton!!! Thank you so much. My biggest problem was that it took me nearly 6 hours to convince Microsoft that I had a valid key. It is old. I bought the family 3 pack when 7 HP first came out. I later bought an anytime upgrade to pro. I haven't tried to apply that yet. But finally, and the only way they would do it was to turn control over to a tech and have him activate it remotely. So I doubt they will let me do that again, though I don't understand why. I have installed it many times as I upgraded HDD's or just to refresh it, but I have never installed it on any more than three machines at a time.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you get a robot that asked you how many machines the OS was installed upon? Did you answer less than 3?

This is the first report I've seen of such problems activating family pack.

Or was the problem inserting the Pro key in Anytime Upgrade?

Remember that the modern way to do this is to capture a backup image of the finished setup to use in place of reinstalls. These hold activation so it ends ever being an issue.