[02rja]

Hello, I have a plan but im not 100% it will work so i want to see what you guys think before i start and then make a mess of it.

I am currently running XP SP3 in 32Bit on my only hard drive (1TB) and i feel it is about time to upgrade to windows 7. I have a copy of windows 7 64Bit Ultimate.

My hard drive is nearly exactly half full, and i would like to keep my files when upgrading to the new OS. I understand that the only way to do this would be to start fresh (especially as i am moving from 32Bit to 64...) but i thought i could split my single hard drive into two ~500GB partitions, install windows 7 on the empty 500GB partition and then move my files over (if neccessary) from the XP partition.

Then i would format the XP partition and then merge them together. Voila, windows 7 with files intact.

My questions are:

1: Is this possible?
2. Is there any way to keep progams/would it work copying program files from XP to the 32B windows7 program folder? If not, would i be able to make them work without too much hastle? This only really applys to big programs such as Games that i no longer have the install disk for, or other large programs that i dont want to download again.

Thanks a lot if you can help! Rollo

EDIT: I will be using Acronis disk director suite

Edited by 02rja, 22 August 2009 - 11:16 AM.

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I'm interested in following the upgrade path that you've chosen, so I'm watching this thread with interest.

One point I think you should be aware of,I don't think it's possible to migrate programs across just by copying their .exe - you need to run whatever installer came with them in order to maintain registry integrity, so if you no longer have the original discs, you're basically stuffed.

It might work on smaller programs, but not large games etc.

[Jonesey]

I'm interested in following the upgrade path that you've chosen, so I'm watching this thread with interest.

One point I think you should be aware of,I don't think it's possible to migrate programs across just by copying their .exe - you need to run whatever installer came with them in order to maintain registry integrity, so if you no longer have the original discs, you're basically stuffed.

It might work on smaller programs, but not large games etc.

[Neil Jones]

Hello, I have a plan but im not 100% it will work so i want to see what you guys think before i start and then make a mess of it.

I am currently running XP SP3 in 32Bit on my only hard drive (1TB) and i feel it is about time to upgrade to windows 7. I have a copy of windows 7 64Bit Ultimate.

My hard drive is nearly exactly half full, and i would like to keep my files when upgrading to the new OS. I understand that the only way to do this would be to start fresh (especially as i am moving from 32Bit to 64...) but i thought i could split my single hard drive into two ~500GB partitions, install windows 7 on the empty 500GB partition and then move my files over (if neccessary) from the XP partition.

Then i would format the XP partition and then merge them together. Voila, windows 7 with files intact.

There is no upgrade ability from XP to Windows 7. The only way you will get Windows 7 on a machine currently running XP is to either wipe it or dual-boot it. The upgrade only works from Vista.

You can move your files from one installation to another, no question about it. The programs are an entirely different issue. You will need to reinstall all of what you use into Windows 7. So to answer your question 2 - the answer is no, unfortunately.

[Jonesey]

So can he split his existing drive into 2 partitions, format 1 of them and INSTALL W7 on the new partition?

No mention was made of upgrading from XP to W7.

[Moshe22]

I am also interested in this topic.
I have a laptop with windows vista currently running and i have 3 other partitions in the same hard drive. what i would like to do is erase my windows vista partition and install windows 7 in it. What i'm not sure of is that if i install windows 7 in that partition will i be able to still see the others partitions with all my data.
so yeah, what you want to do is similar to what i want to do.
but i don't want to start the process until i am sure of what i'm doing.

[dsenette]

My hard drive is nearly exactly half full

you say your hard drive is almost full....you won't be able to resize the partition at all and keep the data....if you had multiple partitions already you MIGHT be able to weasel something in there but it's unlikely

there's no partitioning software that would know that you want to squish all the data that's in half the drive into the other half....it would just chop off half the partition and delete anything that resides on that part of the disk


your best bet is to back up the data externally, format the whole drive and either install 7 only or do a dual boot with XP then copy your data back (or leave it on the external media if you like)


also....you say you've got XP 32bit now....but want to use 7 64bit ...are you sure your motherboard and processor are 64 bit capable?