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So my parents are looking towards my birthday and christmas for gift ideas and I'm pretty much stumped myself as to what I might want. Only thing I can think of is upgrading my PC a little. One thing I've been thinking about is upgrading from Windows Vista to Windows 7.

Is it worth it?
Is it a hassle?
Will it mean a reformat of hard drive or will the upgrade package thing mean I can keep all my stuff and just the OS changes?
Are there any problems with backwards compatability for games? (more so than there is currently)

From what I've seen of Win 7 it runs a lot smoother than Vista. As for upgrading the best thing to do is download the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.
It will tell you if your can run Vista and if not what needs to be fixed inorder so that you can. As for your data and settings are perserved if you are upgrading but not if you do a clean install. So keep that in mind.

There's absolutely no reason to continue using Vista if you can afford it. Since you're migrating from Vista any kind of upgrade should be largely painless, but a clean install is less hassle depending on how much time you feel like spending on it.

General Zod wrote:There's absolutely no reason to continue using Vista if you can afford it. Since you're migrating from Vista any kind of upgrade should be largely painless, but a clean install is less hassle depending on how much time you feel like spending on it.

Oh and certain versions of 2007 can only be upgraded from certain version of vista.
Vista Home Basic and Premium can be upgraded to Win 7 home Premium and Ultimate.
Vista Business to Professional and ultimate.
Vista Ultimate to 2007 Ultimate.

No matter which version download the free upgrade advisor from microsoft here
link It will tell you if you need any missing drivers, updates etc before you try and install.

For example when I went to upgrade my laptop I couldn't as I was missing a couple of windows security updates so I had to fix them first.

dragon wrote:

General Zod wrote:There's absolutely no reason to continue using Vista if you can afford it. Since you're migrating from Vista any kind of upgrade should be largely painless, but a clean install is less hassle depending on how much time you feel like spending on it.

Oh and certain versions of 2007 can only be upgraded from certain version of vista.
Vista Home Basic and Premium can be upgraded to Win 7 home Premium and Ultimate.
Vista Business to Professional and ultimate.
Vista Ultimate to 2007 Ultimate.

No matter which version download the free upgrade advisor from microsoft here
link It will tell you if you need any missing drivers, updates etc before you try and install.

For example when I went to upgrade my laptop I couldn't as I was missing a couple of windows security updates so I had to fix them first.

Unless you need it for something esoteric Home Premium will be more than enough for most people.

True unless its the 64 bit version and wants to go more than the 16gb ram. but 192 gb for professional, enterprise and ultimate is a bit more than he most likely needs

Not looking for anything special, I mainly use my PC for gaming, web surfing and watching DVDs, so as far as I'm aware I don't need any special shiny bits.

Oh, yes. EVERYTHING runs smoother.

I recommend you do a clean install, though. But that's just my unwritten law regarding new OS's.

SushiMaster wrote:Oh, yes. EVERYTHING runs smoother.

I recommend you do a clean install, though. But that's just my unwritten law regarding new OS's.

If you do a clean install make sure you back up your data first.

Absofuckinglutely. It's a remarkable difference for the better. And yes, do a clean install.

Did someone just call it '2007'?

Anyway, shit yes. Whether you're concerned with performance, security or aesthetics, it's the way to go.

Stark wrote:Did someone just call it '2007'?

Yeah laugh it up I was thinking office 2007 when I wrote 2007. Been a long day

If at all possible, you should upgrade. Doesn't matter if it's 32 or 64 bit version, Windows 7 still beats the crap out of Vista with both hands and feet tied. Get the 64 bit version if you can, though.

Why don't we ask Diego Sanchez?

Seriously, my experience with Vista on my laptop ("upgrading" from XP) is... ehh. As Edi said, 64-bit if you can, but Windows 7 any way you can get it (other than the Starter editions). Far more stable (at least in the sense of being less likely to BSOD), far more secure*, compatibility with most programs will not be an issue**, and you get newer versions of some of the things that you may have liked about Vista, such as UAC (lol I know...) and the UI. For example, you can now also pin programs to the taskbar, thus replacing the Quick Launch toolbar.

* Of course, part of this is probably "not adopted enough yet for the exploits to be widespread yet," aka what Mac used to have and what Linux had to an extent, but make sure to get the free Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) antimalware program as soon as you go online with Windows 7.
** Only one I can't seem to get to work is Operation7, though lately my games are in the tank.

OK, so the upgrade is done, I had to go full install as apparently my version wasn't compatible with just an upgrade.
As such I'll probably have to reinstall my games, but the main thing that's annoying me is that I've had to re-install firefox and as such have lost all my bookmarks. Apparently most of my old user details got shifted off to an old windows file and I found my desktop icons in there. Will my bookmarks have been saved somewhere in there?

*Ghetto Edit*
Also, since windows is on my C: partition and all my games (and Steam) is on my D: partition, is there any way to just get Windows to recognise that all the files are still there on D: ready to be used or am I going to have to re-install everything?

You'll probably find most things will work anyway.

If you run into problems with Steam, like I did. Don't be a fucking idiot and uninstall steam, because it uninstalls EVERYTHING IT HAS EVER TOUCHED along with it. Instead, there's a workaround where you delete select files in the Steam folder and when it next loads it correctly refreshes and reinstalls the versions of these files that it needs. Details are on the Steam support page.

Since this is the current 7 thread: do you (users of 7) find you use the XP compatibility feature of Pro? My desktop is on XP still, so I'd like to be able to do most of the same things I did on that, but I'm not sure what could cause problems.

Phantasee wrote:Since this is the current 7 thread: do you (users of 7) find you use the XP compatibility feature of Pro? My desktop is on XP still, so I'd like to be able to do most of the same things I did on that, but I'm not sure what could cause problems.

I've never ran into any compatibility problems with 7. Unless you're using some ancient frankenapp you should be fine.