Replacing WinXP by Win7

[Chris Hogg]

This is something of a follow-on from earlier threads, but I thought I'd start a new one as I have specific questions.

I have an elderly Packard-Bell PC running Win XP SP2 32 bit version. It has two internal hard drives, roughly 80 Gb each and an external hard drive of similar size which is used for backup only and I don't have running all the time, only when backing up. The two internal hard drives are C and D, respectively. Drive C contains all the Windows stuff, as well as all the other program files etc. Drive D has the document files (videos, pictures etc.).

As MS are no longer supporting Win XP, I intend to replace it with Win7, 32 bit version. But to do this I gather it has to be done with a clean install, i.e. it will wipe everything off the disc I install it on. If I install it on drive C, I will lose everything there, which might make life difficult. Although I could probably re-install quite a lot of it, I'd rather not have the hassle.

My plan is to erase a lot of programmes and other junk on drive C that I don't use, and also a lot of stuff on drive D that is no longer wanted, and simply move the documents folder from D to C, thereby completely freeing up D (there will be room on C to do this). I would then install Win 7 on drive D and set it to be the boot disc in the BIOS.

Does this seem reasonable? Can I still run the programmes that are on drive C, assuming they ran OK under Win XP, simply by calling them up via a shortcut or whatever? (I know that a couple won't run under Win7; they are 'legacy' programmes, probably written originally to run under early versions of Windows, or even DOS. They run on XP but won't run under Win7).

If needed, could I then move the documents folder back to drive D?

Can I set the computer up to be a dual boot system, XP or 7, should I so need?

Any pitfalls or traps to be aware of? (I'm no expert in all this, but usually manage to muddle through somehow, although I probably take many times longer to get there than others with more experience and knowledge would do, and with a significantly higher blood-pressure!)

[Adrian]

How "elderly"? My gut feel is that the end result will be borderline unusable without upgrading the hardware.

And here we get to probably the most important question... Given that you haven't been worried about updating your PC since at least 2008, when SP3 was released, why are you worrying about no more updates going forward?

You'd need to reinstall them.

I think you're rapidly going to find that 2 x 80Gb disks isn't enough anyway, so trying to have the machine dual-boot is definitely going to see you upgrading the drives.

Seriously, it sounds like your choice is either to continue as you've been going, or upgrade the hardware.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks for the quick reply. It's about 10 years old.

At the time, I didn't get the impression that SP3 offered a lot extra that would be useful to me, but took up a lot of space. I still get (got!) the various security updates and patches that were offered.

Thanks for that. I didn't realise. (See the last para in my OP!)

Are you saying that I wouldn't go far wrong by sticking with XP? I use Kaspersky for my AV/firewall etc, and I run as a 'user' not administrator. I had wondered, with all the obvious 'holes' in XP having been plugged over the years, and most modern machines being equipped with Win7 or even Win8 these days, whether the hackers wouldn't bother with XP any more but devote their time to the newer versions.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - It's what I have here. Think it's a function of Win7, although I use EasyBCD to edit the boot file.

[Adrian C]

Their target is anything weak.

Unpatched XP, unpatched Java/Flash, unpatched internet connected user applications.

Chances are your machine has already been visited, cracked, bugged and raided; So, yes, continue using it. After that, what's the worst that can happen that hasn't already happened?

Nah. Seriously, it's time to move on.

Secondhand perfectly capable ex-corporate Window 7 desktops can be had for £100 or so.

[John Rumm]

You can do an upgrade install (i.e. keeping the programs etc) but you will have to do it in two stages, upgrading to vista first thence win 7.

(you can download vista from one of the MS official mirror sites)

You can get win7 and a resonable compliment of apps onto a 60GB drive. My Win 7 box has a 120GB SSD as its primary boot partition, and that is only about half full with Win 7 Pro x64 and a reasonable load of apps (although I have a separate partition for games)

If you go through the upgrade path via vista, then yes (assuming the apps work with win 7 in the first place - download the Win 7 compatibility checker from MS and run it on the system now to see what will work or not).

If you just do a new install of Win 7, then no, you will need a full reinstall of any apps you want to use.

Three options, keep XP alive in a virtual machine (Win 7 Pro included this out of the box), of have dual boot, or find updates for the legacy apps.

Yes - right click and change the path in the properties dialogue - it will offer to actually move the existing files fro you as well.

You can move the whole use profile if you want, although you need a utility to create hard links ideally.

Make sure you have an absolute minimum of 2GB of RAM, and preferably 4GB.

The machine sounds like its going to be borderline for running any modern OS. You could probably eeek a bit more life out of it by replacing the hard drives with a solid state disk.

[dave]

On Wed, 02 Apr 2014 20:49:24 +0100, John Rumm wrote: Suggest asking at uk.comp.homebuilt. From XP to 7 is not easy esp. in regard to many applications (registry content) and of course 32 or 64 bit. I have found x64 bit more stable than x32. Although many 32 bit applications will run fit on 64 bit 7. There are so many aspects to this and at several levels OS boot system and so on - not made easier by the fact that no upgrade path was designed for this by M$ afaik. Anyway uk.comp.homebuilt will know more.

[John Rumm]

Worth noting that a "in place upgrade" to 7 is not possible if you also want to go from 32 to 64 bit.

Perhaps, but keep in mind there are several folks here who do this stuff professionally.

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks for all that, John. I see in an earlier thread that Mike Tomlinson did something very similar, upgrading XP to 7 via Vista. But as you say, and the two Adrian's also said, the machine itself may not be up to having its OS upgraded very satisfactorily anyway. Reluctantly, I think I'll have to bite the bullet and get a replacement, although I'm not looking forward to the transition process.

[Brian Gaff]

No it won't work unless the apps are portable versions. The issues will be the paths and registration of runtimes and their locations in the registry of the machine. I think in reality, as long as you are careful, Win XP can still be used. I'm not sure what would happen if you did the upgrade to Vista, then to 7 from there, but my guess is that some programs would get trashed. Outlook express certainly won't work on either of them.

Brian

[Brian Gaff]

In fact I have several XP machines and I intend to carry on using them as if nothing had changed. According to Microsoft, my XP pro SP3 will not be updated with hotfixes after april, but I'll get the malicious software removal tool updates till July 2015 and Security Essentials definitions till the same date. After that, I suspect that few if any anti virus programs will still support XP. One can never be sure though, as there were over 20 percent of users still making use of XP when Microsoft decided to end support, many of them inside companies. there has never been ssuch a large user base of software which was unsupported before. Just be careful what gets updated on the machine. IE do not attempt to install Java 8, and be careful to keep the last install files around in case newer versions screw up on xp. Brian