[McGiboney]

So I've been using Windows Vista on my laptop since I got it in 2009. My laptop has received a lot of use since my desktop died about a year and a half ago. I've been toying with the idea of wiping the hard drive and reinstalling a new OS just to kind of give my laptop a refresher. What are you all's suggestions on a new OS? Is this a good idea? Whats the best way I can back up my information? Also, if there are some clean up programs that I could use to avoid having to wipe my system I would be interested to hear what those are. Thanks for your time!

-Mason

P.S. Here is my system info

[happyrock]

Hi McGiboney ... ..


first go here...download and run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

[Thee Dude]

Windows vista is likely the least liked Windows OS of all time due to its instability, bugs, lack of support, lack of compatabilty. I'd very much recommend going for the Beta of Win 8 or use OSX. I've never had any problems with OSX in my life

[McGiboney]

So the windows 7 upgrade advisor told me I was good to go on windows 7 ultimate. Whats the best way to wipe and reinstall with that?

[happyrock]

buy the upgrade dvd...put it in the dvd drive and boot from it
but when you get to the part where it wants you to put in the key select I'll do it later...
there will be a slew of reboots...when its done installing completely repeat the whole process again except this time put in the key...and you want to activate it...(its called a clean install)
you should have MSE or whatever anti virus program you prefer already downloaded and burned to a cd or usb flash drive...install it and then immediately go to windows update and get any updates it says you need including any hardware updates...
hopefully the upgrade disk has SP1 included...its a large download compared to the patches...
set your restore size to about 5 GBs