whole bunch of home computers to upgrade OS on...

[TWX]

...and I have a few questions.

First, all of the OEM-loaded 7 boxes I've played with have a more complicated partition structure than XP. Does this mean partition table mods to an existing drive when upgrading? Is it even possible to "upgrade" without reformatting? If it is possible, how much personalization for user accounts and softwre will survive, if any?

Second, I'm looking into those 3-pack home premium upgrade bundles. Several of the current boxes run XP Pro. Any issue there or any real functionality from XP Pro (not on a domain) that I'll lose by going to 7 home?

Third, the boxes are fairly diverse:
HP DC7700 workstations
Gateway MX7525 laptop
Dell Latitude D410 laptops
Dell Latitude D420 laptop
Biostar 945-based box
ASUS PC-DL Deluxe with dual Xeon Prestonia chips

What kind of driver availability issues should I expect? I don't have to do all of them, (probably going to put Debian on the Asus-based box) but most will get it.

Last, I have a Lenovo Ideapad S10-2 with Win7 Starter. Will the Home Premium upgrade disk find this as qualifying? If so, will any existing configuration there survive the upgrade?

Thanks in advance!

 

[pebbly]

Hi TWX, Welcome to the forums ,You can do an upgrade install by following this tutorial http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/131041-upgrade-install-xp-windows-7-a.html But be aware the general opinion is to use the upgrade disc and do a clean install http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html . With so many PCs to upgrade you may wish to look into creating an autounattend installation disc

 

[DeaconFrost]

Do a clean install on one system, without any drivers being installed. Don't put a key in, and don't activate. Update the OS, and then use whatever imaging software you prefer and lay down that image on each system. Use a flash drive to install any drivers (have them ready before hand), and you're done.

 

[TWX]

It'll have to be two installs- the netbook and the Dell laptops are 32 bit, as is the Xeon. The Gateway laptop is 64 bit, but is AMD Athon 64, so I guess I'll have to look into if that'll be a problem there versus Intel's 64 bit instruction set on the HPs and the Biostar...