Upgrading from RC to retail (upgrade version)

[LiTos456]

Hey Wishmaster;
Thanks for your tips. I have a few questions.

First of all, the Hiberfile unfortunately only freed exactly 3 GB. It is still useful, of course, but damn it would be hell of a miracle if it really freed 8GB of space.

Pagefile: Question - why do I need it? Can I turn it off entirely, to free the 4 GB that it uses, just until I finish the upgrade? And then turn it back on when I'm done upgrading? Would that be ok?

System restore: Same question, can I turn it off completely until I finish the upgrade so that I free up space? I currently have 9 GB free, but the upgrade set up still needs the 16 GB, so if I free 4 GB by disabling the page file I should have 13 GB, and maybe I could get several more GB from disabling system restore? If there's anything else left over I could probably squeeze another GB or so out, I guess...

Windows.old: are you saying that the upgrade actually does create a new windows folder, and does NOT overwrite the old one, but actually leaves it? Well, I guess that explains a lot. However, just to make sure, after I delete the windows.old folder if I successfully upgraded, (and currently my OS weighs around 15 GB), then I will have around 15 GB free, right?

If so, then I can obviously enable pagefile and system restore back and should be ok. Please respond, thank you.

PS: Speaking of using system restore, I never use it. My windows always runs fine. I think turning it off (and the pagefile too) temporarily just for the duration of the upgrade is ok, but I need you to confirm all of this please.

Cyberized: Can you please make your own thread and not try to hi-jack mine? You have more chances for response if you make your own thread. Thanks.

 

[Wishmaster]

If you done a inplace upgrade there will be a windows.old folder yes.

Another thing you can try.

Open a cmd prompt as admin

type:
cleanmgr sageset:50

check all the boxes you want cleaned.
(This is just an advanced version of disk clean up)
Press OK then type:
cleanmge sagerun:50

About Pagefile, theres a lot of arguments about if you need one or not.
IMHO, its there for a reason, and some programs expect to see it there..
I never disable it completly.
I have 8GB of RAM in my machine and still use it. granted, its a static smaller one, @ 768MB, but i still have one.
Others may disagree, but my advice, make it smaller if you want but do not disable it completely.

As far as the size of Win7x64 ... Mine sits at around 14GB with all my apps installed.
Now thats just Win7 x64, and programs.
All personal DATA (Music/Pics/Videos/Documents/Downloads etc) & Games on other drives.

<<EDIT: wait, my fault. I completely overlooked you were upgradeing from the Release Client.
You should format your HD and do a clean install to the Official Realease in this case. In this case there will be no Windows.old folder>>

 

[LiTos456]

You do not seem to understand. Formatting and doing a clean install is the exact thing I'm trying to avoid. I need to do all I can to get enough free space so that the upgrade can proceed. If you have read the earlier posts I've done all the workarounds to make sure that the RC is okay with upgrading itself into the RTM, which is normally not possible, it was pretty easy to adjust however.

My problem now is that there isn't enough disk space for the OS to install itself. That's why I'm trying so hard to free up space.
I've just squeezed a bit more space out, now I have 10.3 GB free. There is still more I can try to free up, will be working on that now.

Back to pagefile. What is the smallest number of MB I could let it have without taking risks? 768 MB? The more space I can free up by decreasing the pagefile the better.

And again, about system restore. You hadn't answered me if it's ok to turn it off completely, temporarily, until I'm done with the upgrade and delete the windows.old folder. I need as much space as I can get right now, just for the upgrade, then I will be totally ok with enabling everything back.

Update: I dont know but according to this page, I should be fine if I disable it, let alone only temporarily until the upgrade is done. This would give me 4 GB free space I think... Since I have 4 GB RAM. Except when I go to my pagefile settings it uses only 4 GB and not 6.5 apparently. So yeah, do you think with 4 GB RAM I should be ok if I change it until the upgrade is done, and then enable it back...? And the upgrade wouldn't automatically enable it back before I free space for it by deleting windows.old folder, now would it?

 

[LiTos456]

Damn. System restore is only taking up about 200 MB right now. Then it doesn't really matter then, better to leave it on.
My chances all rely within disabling the pagefile right now. I need someone to confirm if it's ok to do it. Then if I do that, I should have 14 GB free, and well... maybe, just maybe I can try to free up 2 more GB somehow magically. I wish the hiberfile was larger than the 3 GB that it took up, thus freeing much more space. But oh well, I can still keep trying...

 

[gregrocker]

Can someone PLEASE advise and HELP me... the man who installed this W'7 RC chose to partition the 1 TB HD into three partitions, and on one of them he installed a friend's copy of W' Vista.......it turned out to be unuseable, so their lies around 400GB of DEAD space........in some ways I really don't see where I will ever need that 400GB.....BUT it would be GREAT if I could re-partition and solve that problem when I do the Upgrade. I am thinking that I would proobably have to do a FULL/Clean install in order to re-partition like that - is that right? Then I would be forced to have to re-install everything again - right?

Yes you can extend your Win7 partition into deleted Vista to gain more space using Disk Mgmt or 3rd party utility, but it can be tricky if Vista holds the System Active MBR.

However, we help do these Dual Boot extractions with space recovery all the time here - about 150 times since Win7 release with 98% success rate.

So post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map using Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attach file using paper clip in reply box. We can give you the exact steps then and you'll have the space you need.

 

[LiTos456]

Seriously, can that issue be taken to another thread? I could really use some help on my thing. Right now I'm just waiting on confirmation whether it's safe to temporarily disable the page file for the duration of the upgrade so I have enough space.

 

[gregrocker]

Sorry I thought that was you reporting information I had missed earlier that solves your problem.

Yes, you can temporarily disable your page file to gain back more space for in-place Upgrade.

 

[LiTos456]

Sorry I thought that was you reporting information I had missed earlier that solves your problem.

Yes, you can temporarily disable your page file to gain back more space for in-place Upgrade.

Thank you kindly sir. I just needed someone to confirm this.
I will do so tomorrow and then will try my best to free the remaining space. Let's hope this works.

 

[LiTos456]

This is amazing. I found 2 GB of waste data in my AppData folder from a game that I uninstalled ages ago. Hell, it was actually just a demo for a game, that I installed on a different drive. Hard to believe I found that really. I used Treesize Professional, it's a disk size checking program that basically lines folders up from heaviest to lightest, good way to sort things out.

All I need to do now is disable the pagefile sys, which should give me 4 more GB, in total I should have 16.6.
But not before a game of pool with my friend in a couple of hours. When I get back I will do the necessary backups just in case and perform the upgrade, and then tell you how it goes.

 

[gregrocker]

Run the CCleaner "Run Cleaner" and Registry tab, then the Auslogics Disk Defragger one more time before Upgrade.

You are learning a lot here and have done well. Good luck with the Upgrade. The reports here on RC in-place Upgrade so far are 100% positive, which is one of the bigger surprises of Win7 release.

 

[LiTos456]

Alright, thanks for the tip. Will do.

 

[Ztruker]

Michael, you can use one of the free partition managers from here:
Free Partitioning Software (Partition Editors, Managers, and Recovery Tools)


I've used the first 2 listed, GParted LiveCD and Partition Logic successfully to resize partitions. Both of these are iso images you download and create a bootable CD from, then boot the CD to do the partitioning.

 

[LiTos456]

Edit: Nevermind this post, by the time I got back from posting it it progressed...

 

[LiTos456]

Well guys, it worked. The upgrade went flawlessly and everything is intact.
Thank you very much for everyone who helped me out here guys, it was very, very helpful.

 

[gregrocker]

Amazing, every time it's reported: The in-place Upgrade which users like the most is from RC to RTM.

Can only be because they have been using the (beta buggy) RC so the RTM is such a quality improvement it is a shock.

Imagine how happy they'd be with a clean install!

 

[LiTos456]

Thank again Gregrocker, you've been most helpful.