Win 7 upgrade strategy

[BillS22]

I'm running Vista 64 and plan to do a clean Win 7 install 10/22.
I've upgrade before, but always manually backing up up the necessary files and settings. I have an external drive.

But what about Easy File Transfer?
Could I install Win 7 over Vista and use Easy File Transfer?

1. Install Win 7 as an upgrade

2. Do an Easy File Transfer to my external drive (to take advantage of Win 7's more robust Easy File Transfer)

3. Format C and do an Clean Install

4. Use Easy File Transfer to restore my previous files and settings off my external drive.

Think it will work?

 

[DocBrown]

I did Windows Easy File Transfer on an earlier Build of Win7

It worked very smoothly

149gb backed-up to easy transfer file on ext HD.

Transferred in & everythings worked with NO problems

Here is the link to the Tutorial

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11470-windows-easy-transfer-transfer-computers.html

" Doc "

 

[wallyinnc]

Bill, your idea sounds good and logical. I myself have no experience with EFT and I am seeking advice. Please let me know if it works well. Tks

 

[BillS22]

The tutorial makes it look easy. My computer has two user accounts, mine and my wife's.
Do I have to do the file transfer under each account?

I want to say that one of Win 7's EFT features is that it does all accounts at once. But I'm not sure...I'll search the web..

Thanks,
Bill

 

[BillS22]

According to this website, yes, EFT asllows you to do multiple accounts at once.

Inside the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility | ZDNet Photo Gallery

 

[DocBrown]

According to this website, yes, EFT asllows you to do multiple accounts at once.

Inside the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility | ZDNet Photo Gallery

Glad you found that on ZDNet

Here is my one Big EFT of 149gb on an external HD

 

[Kari]

Hello, Bill.

Not wanting to tell you how you should do the migration, I just want to tell you how I've done it already a couple of times and with a couple of computers. My method is maybe a little bit unconventional, but it is a easy, reliable way to assure you can transfer absolutely everything to your new OS. It takes just a few clicks:

First, I create a full System Image of my Vista system using Vista Backup and Restore. It creates a virtual hard disk file plus some xml-catalog files to X:\WindowsImageBackup\Y\Backup Z , where X: is the drive where I save the backup image, Y is the name of my computer and Z is the date backup image was created.

See the images:




When I've done with Windows 7 installation, the first thing I install after virus protection and firewall is Virtual PC and Virtual XP (free download here). Using Virtual XP or any other virtual machine, I then mount the Vista System Image (a vhd-file, virtual hard disk) as a second hard drive to this virtual machine. This tutorial explains how to do that.

After that, I have access to everything I had on my Vista. The Vista backup image is now shown as a hard drive on the virtual machine:




Every file and folder. I like to do it this way because doing so I have no need to think what to transfer; it saves absolutely everything from the Vista system, I can always retrieve any file or folder I need. In worst case scenario I can also use this system backup image to restore Vista.

Notice please: also some applications can be transferred this way, but mostly only portable ones which don't write anything to the registry.

Good luck with migration!

Kari