[Lokius]

I have a laptop that is a little over a year old. It runs fast and all, but it came with Windows Vista 64bit. I would like to upgrade to Windows 7, but my problem is the hard drive. It is only 180GB and is partitioned into a C:/ and a D:/ drive. "C" is OS and "D" is Data. I made the mistake of installing STEAM on the C drive and thus the games I have on it drops it down to 14.7GB free space. On the other hand, my D drive has 57.6GB free. Both partitions are actually only 88gb in size. My problem is that Windows 7 says it needs 16gb for 32bit installation and 20gb for 64bit installation. My question is to whether or not it will mostly overwrite Vista or whether it will coincide with Vista. In other words, will Windows 7 use little, if any, more hard drive space than is already used.

I am also wondering if it does coincide with Vista rather than overwriting it, can I put it on my Data drive? And if so, can I then uninstall XP?

Thanks

*edit*

I corrected all my mistakes. For some reason I had it in my mind that I have XP. I have Vista 64 bit. My mistake.

Edited by Lokius, 25 January 2010 - 03:16 PM.

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The only way you can have your existing Windows Vista live alongside Windows 7 is if you put Win 7 on partition D in a dual-boot arrangement, which gives you a boot options screen each time you start the PC, allowing you to run one or the other.

Despite disk space being on the low side, this dual-boot arrangement will allow you to see if your PC has any Windows 7 compatibility issues with drivers or driver availability, (an important point when upgrading a PC not designed for Windows 7), and if any major issues do arise you'll be able to boot into Vista till, hopefully, you get it sorted.

What you really ought to do now is check your laptop manufacturer's website to see if they've released any Win 7 drivers for your model, because laptop drivers are custom made for that brand. If they don't have them you may struggle to find drivers that work properly. On a desktop PC you can replace incompatible hardware components to solve a driver problem, you can't do that with a laptop.

If you proceed with the dual boot idea, there's a tutorial here:
http://lifehacker.co...ith-xp-or-vista

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 27 January 2010 - 03:52 PM.

[phillipcorcoran]

The only way you can have your existing Windows Vista live alongside Windows 7 is if you put Win 7 on partition D in a dual-boot arrangement, which gives you a boot options screen each time you start the PC, allowing you to run one or the other.

Despite disk space being on the low side, this dual-boot arrangement will allow you to see if your PC has any Windows 7 compatibility issues with drivers or driver availability, (an important point when upgrading a PC not designed for Windows 7), and if any major issues do arise you'll be able to boot into Vista till, hopefully, you get it sorted.

What you really ought to do now is check your laptop manufacturer's website to see if they've released any Win 7 drivers for your model, because laptop drivers are custom made for that brand. If they don't have them you may struggle to find drivers that work properly. On a desktop PC you can replace incompatible hardware components to solve a driver problem, you can't do that with a laptop.

If you proceed with the dual boot idea, there's a tutorial here:
http://lifehacker.co...ith-xp-or-vista

Edited by phillipcorcoran, 27 January 2010 - 03:52 PM.

[Lokius]

I don't think drivers will be a big deal. My laptop is Gateway and everything else is major name brand. It's only a year old, so I wouldn't think the hardware would be 100% abandoned yet.

What I am really curious about is to whether or not installing Windows 7 over Vista will still require me to have 20 free gigs of space or whether it will only require, say, five more gigs.

[Lokius]

Any ideas on this yet? I just want to know if overwriting Vista will cause Windows 7 to use less drive space than it says it needs on the box. It says it needs 20 free gigs. Will it perhaps only need 8 free gigs if I overwrite Vista? Thanks