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Thread ID: 106516	2010-01-12 00:41:00	Windows 7	Woody (710)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
847981	2010-01-12 00:41:00	Santa brought me a copy of W7 and a 1Tb ext HDD. Question - before inst of new OS, is it necessary or adviseable to format my existing PC HD? I'm running XP so I understand that I must do a clean install of 7. Does a W7 install retain existing drivers - Video, opt drives, printers, scanner etc? (a reformat would kill them all) The W& instructions appear reasonably clear but don't say a lot about format or otherwise of the existing PC Currently - XP; 80 GB HDD; 2 GB DDR ram. Any other advice of W7 install appreciated from anybody whose been there & done that. Cheers	Woody (710)
847982	2010-01-12 00:47:00	If you want to keep XP, dual boot with Win7. Or format / partition the 1 TB, and then format the hdd with XP on it. Keep it as an extra hdd. If you format the XP hdd, it'll kill everything. You'll have to reinstall everything. Altho Win7 MAY pick up some drivers (the sound/LAN / and a generic video driver) And if you install Win x64, make sure there are 64 bit drivers for what you've got. Since 32 bit drivers wont work. If you're installing Win7 32 bit, and it crashes, (with these stop errors), you may have to install this (support.microsoft.com). Since youre using a 1TB hdd	Speedy Gonzales (78)
847983	2010-01-12 01:47:00	Thanks Speedy, Am planning to install W7 instead of XP. Might as well go the whole hog, although XP has been the most reliable OS I've had in the past 20 years. Cheers	Woody (710)
847984	2010-01-12 01:50:00	No probs	Speedy Gonzales (78)
847985	2010-01-12 06:11:00	I find it's always a good idea to check out the driver situation with the Upgrade Advisor tool which you can get here: www.microsoft.com Good luck with the install! cheers W	waldok (15185)
847986	2010-01-13 07:00:00	I think you will be very pleased with W7. I have Ultimate 32bit. It is 100% stable, fast & very easy to customize. I have set it up on a variety of computers, old and new, and have very few driver problems. If you do need a driver you will probably find one in "Windows Update". There is also a little program called "Driver Genius" which will scan your system & then go on line & find drivers. I even got a driver for an old "Mustek 1200 USB scanner". Most software will run on it as is. "Dos Box 2" runs any Dos programs. You can quite often use XP drivers if you bypass the installer & just use the .inf files. If you want to dual boot, make an Image of your XP and use that. You will have to edit the boot.ini file to change the partition number (to 2?). You will also have to copy "ntldr" & "ntdetect.com" & "boot.ini" to your "C" drive. Download "EasyBCD" and edit the W7 boot manager to add the XP.	mzee (3324)
847987	2010-01-13 19:55:00	It is not necessary to format before installing W7. It is not even necessary to remove XP. W7 will do it all for you. It even creates a folder called "Windows Old" which contains all your old files These can be dragged into 7. I consider 7 to be the best and easiest o/s of all time. And by far, the quickest to install. I have installed five different versions of 7 and have had not had a single problem with any of the installations. Having said all this, my preference is to do a deap format of my hard disk and create a partition just for 7. Then install all other programs in another partition. Then a third partition for all my files. Not necessary. I just like it like that. Do not be deterred by talk of driver problems. There is no problem. 7 will find and install all drivers it needs. In one instance it directed me to HP's driver page and I had to download drivers for my colour laser printer myself. I recently plugged a scanner I had not used for about twelve months. It was recognised at once and driver was installed. And it worked! I am currently useing W7 Ultimate 64 bit. I have 12 gigs of ram that are all recognised.:clap Jack	JJJJJ (528)
847988	2010-01-13 20:21:00	Do not be deterred by talk of driver problems. There is no problem. 7 will find and install all drivers it needs. Sorry JJJJJ. Win 7 "found" my sound driver just fine. Problem was I got no noise. Downloading the real one fixed it. Win 7 "found" my friends dialup modem driver too. She got no dial sound out of it, it connected at 31k and gave frequent disconnects. There was no real driver to download and we had to change the modem. These are just 2 instances I have found so far. It's pretty good but nothing is perfect.	pctek (84)
847989	2010-01-13 21:29:00	Win 7 "found" my friends dialup modem driver too . She got no dial sound out of it, it connected at 31k and gave frequent disconnects . Dialup . . . . . hmmm, I think Ive heard of that before . ;)	Barnabas (4562)
847990	2010-01-14 03:37:00	Dialup . . . . . hmmm, I think Ive heard of that before . And so you should have considering how much of NZ can't get broadband . Telecom suck badly .	pctek (84)
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