Windows 7 64bit install from Windows XP 32bit notes
by Lucas
Six months ago, I built a new computer. Since i wasnt ready to take the plunge into Win7 world, i opted to stay with XP for a bit longer. However, over the weekend, i decided to take said plunge, mainly to take advantage of a 64bit OS & my full 8 gig of ram.
Currently, I’m running a 32bit XP and want to whack it all & go w/ 64bit Windows7 Professional. I searched the interwebs for build instructions, but couldnt really find much because of this scenario (and probably because the search words are so common that anything truely useful would be buried deep in google’s search results), so i decided to try it on my own & wanted to jot down some notes on the procedure, so here it is… all poorly spelled and ill-organized… oh well:
My intention is NOT to upgrade, but to whack & reinstall from scratch, so this means formatting & partitioning etc…
1. back up all your shit (token first step in any OS changin’).
2. since the computer is set to 32bit, it wouldn’t recognize the 64bit DVD as a valid application. After getting pissed about it not working, i went into the bios and made my DVD drive the 1st in the boot list & rebooted. Still no luck, skipped the DVD & went straight into the XP startup.
3. Went back into the bios and disabled all others, so the only thing in the boot list was the Win7 DVD.
4. Save & exit – NOW the Win7 disc is recognized because the ‘boot from dvd’ option came up (F12 to enter this usually)
5. In the Install GUI – choose ‘custom’ (as opposed to upgrade). if you’re doing this, it’s worth doing it from scratch. this means you’ll have to reinstall all of your old apps, but you should do that anyway, a lot of apps have separate versions for xp and win7 now.
Side Note #1: I went through my computer to see what all apps I was using, nearly all of mine are open source/freeware, so i was able to download them all and store them on an external drive or thumbdrive. i also made sure to have my motherboard & graphics card cd’s around too, but if you can get online, a lot of times it’s easier to go to the manufacturers site to get the drivers (which is good as you’ll be sure to get any updates and anything ‘special’ for Win7)
you have to repartition the hard-drive you want it installed on (which means you’ll lose all yo stuff)
6. In the custom menu – select your C-drive (typical installation) and tell it to format & create new partition etc etc
7. After it runs through the setup process, the computer will automatically reboot. at this point, you HAVE to get back into your bios before it’s allowed to reboot. if you don’t, it’ll start-up from disk again & try to reinstall windows (again..) – if this happens, hit ‘esc’ to cancel, which will shut the computer down, no worries though, you can still go back into the bios on the next reboot (it took me like 3 tries to get this…)
8. In the BIOS menu – move your main hard-drive back up to the top (enabled) and the dvd as #2. let the machine start up as normal (ie – not from boot disk).
9. after that, step through the install instructions. once you get it to recognize the disk, it’s easy.
i would make sure you computer can handle the 64 bit windows – use the Windows Compatibility Manager to determine if it’ll work (this should have been the first step probably), if it wont ‘take’ the 64bit, then you need to get the 32bit version. if your computer was purchased w/in the last couple years though, you should be fine
on a side note – i bought the ‘Professional for System Builders’ version – this was about $75 cheaper and has all the same features, but i believe you may lose some future upgrade capibilities – ie: if you ever need to upgrade to a new OS, you may have to go buy the full version instead of the ‘upgrade’ version
on another side note – i DID NOT have to reinstall any drivers. for anything. graphics, motherboard, sound, network etc. that’s HUGE, it just worked & worked well…. that’s something that you dont get when installing XP….
start to finish, w/o reinstalling all my old apps – the process took me about 45 minutes, but if i knew the above ‘boot disk’ stuff, it probably would have only taken about 30 minutes)
there ya go. this was written for me for the next time i have to do this (because i’m forgetful)
