Best way to upgrade to Windows 7 from XP

Alright. I just put Windows 7 on my sister's new laptop and I'm pretty impressed. I'd like to put it on my laptop (my main comp) but I don't want to lose my current set up.

However, I don't have an external hdd, and only one partition. If I DID have another hd, I would simply clone my whole current setup on it, and then continue to format and do a clean install. If I wanna go back, I could just return to the clone...

Since I can't do that, can you guys give me some ideas?

Could I do a dual boot and eventually if I find it's ok, get rid of the XP install? Can I do this without creating a second partition? If a second partition IS required, could I eventually get rid of it?

What programs will help me do this?

Thanks,

Flaviu

 

Make a new partition on your existing drive, then install Windows 7 on that partition. Google for "dual boot xp and windows 7".

Yes, you can remove Windows XP after installing Windows 7, but it's not as straightforward as removing Windows 7 would be.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...n/thread/d04c194c-1627-4cc1-9be0-a0ef6ae595ab

 

Hmm I should probably wait until I get a new drive and do everything clean on that... then transfer all my documents over...If I'm unhappy with Windows 7 on this new (bigger drive) I will just clone the old drive onto it...

P.S. Any partition apps out there that can read/write to a drive connected through USB?

 

I agree that it is a lot better to wait until you can get a totally different drive to test on. I use Drive Snapshot to clone all of my drives but most will find it more straight forward to use Acronis True Image. Both can clone via USB and do about 1GB of data per minute.

I installed my Windows 7 RC 7100 X64 onto a new Seagate 7200 RPM 500GB drive, you can never really have too many hard drives.

 

Yea...

Until I get that drive though, I'm thinking of cloning my current onto a harddrive on my network and doing a clean wipe of the internal one I have now (100GB). Do you know if acronis will read/save a partition from a network location? I don't have an enclosure or an adapter to put the 2.5" hd into a desktop comptuer... I do need an adapter right? It won't just hook up to a 3.5" ide cable?

 

You should visit the Acronis website and see if they support backups via a network.

 

I'm trying...take a look here under features. It's hard to tell. It looks like it could save a cross the network...but what about restoring a partition from across the network? That might be trickier...

Edit: Hmm according to this it's possible.

 

I usually backup to an external USB Drive with Acronis TI 2009 but, just for you, I am backing up over my home network as I type this reply to make sure it works. It does! It takes considerably longer than to an external USB. I am only backing up a 12GB partition and it appears it will take an hour or more.

I can only assume a restore will work equally as well over the network, I am not willing to simulate a restore.

 

^^ Haha thanks bro.

 

An easy-to-use partition manager, and probably the best XP, is the free Easeus Partition Master. Yes, you can delete partitions easily with it. It probably rivals the integrated partition manager in Vista.

 

I recommend EasyBCD for managing 2 OS's.

 

Windows 7 is TOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

 

What if you want to create a 3 multi boot solution ( XP, Vista, and Win 7 RC ). Any suggestions, or does EasyBCD handle it? Thank you.

 

Have you googled for 'multiboot xp vista 7'?