Upgrade to Win7 x64 from 32 with new HD but keep all existing settings

[mark4nf]

Hi

Im currently running windows 7 32 bit on a 150Gb SATA drive and want to upgrade to a larger SATA 2 drive to utilise the motherboards potential.

Im also looking to upgrade my memory as 32 bit doesnt support anything more than 4Gb.

Ive searched most forums and found that i do need to carry out a clean install, but is there a way to create a system image from the 32 bit and only restore the programs and settings that i require.

Im not looking forward to re-installing all programs from scratch unless i absolutely have to. Im also worried that even if i cant restore programs that all my settings wont be recovered.

I am planning on still keeping my existing hard drive as a slave and use for backup, so before i format this i will still have access to all my information.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

thanks

 

[richc46]

Welcome
You can use a system imagek but I would look into easy transfer to transfer everything, but programs
Windows Easy Transfer - Windows 7 features - Microsoft Windows
It is likely that this is possible, but I am not certain

 

[gregrocker]

You can't use settings from a 32 bit Win7 install for a 64 bit reinstall, nor any part of an image. A clean reinstall means just that - not importing fully incompatible Appdata settings.

Follow these steps to get a perfect clean reinstall: Reinstalling Windows 7