Windows 7 upgrade plans

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Chief Editor Ted Como brings you the latest tech advice on Tech Bytes

Published Wednesday, October 28 2009 - (0) Comments

Upgrading your system from XP or Vista, to Windows7 which was released last week, has some users confused about whether they will have to reinstall all of their programs. The answer for all XP users is yes; for Vista users, it depends on which version of Vista you're running, and which version of W7 you wish to upgrade to.
You may only do an in-place upgrade from Vista to the corresponding version of W7 - you won't have to reinstall programs or data. But if you're moving up to a higher version in W7, you'll have to reinstall everything.
For instance, I'm running Vista Home Premium on my primary systsem. I can do an in-place upgrade to W7 Home Premium and all of my programs will remain in place. But I want to upgrade to W7 Professional, primarily because that version has a fully licensed copy of Windows XP built into it. You can launch the virtual XP mode from within W7 Pro, and install XP programs that otherwise wouldn't run on either Vista or W7, and system devices that are not supported in Vista or W7.
And so my plan is to add a second hard drive to my system and install W7 Pro there, using a W7 Pro upgrade disc that costs only half what I'd pay for the full version of W7 Pro. The W7 Pro upgrade disc is $200 but I ordered it directly from Microsoft earlier this year when it pre-sold certain W7 discs for half off. The full version of W7 Pro costs $300.
After the installation, the system should come back up in dual-boot mode, allowing me to either boot to Vista on the C drive, or W7 on the D drive. In effect, with virtual XP running within W7, I'll have three operating systems available to me. I've got a lot of programs loaded on my Vista machine and this approach allows me to take my time reinstalling them in W7 on the second hard drive, and accessing data associated with those programs.
Yes, I'm aware that technically this violates Microsoft's End User License Agreement which states that I may no longer use the operating system I'm upgrading from unless I buy the full version of W7. And once I've fully installed all programs on W7, I likely won't boot the machine to Vista. But I disagree with the EULA: I paid for Vista, and I paid for the W7 upgrade disc. Why should I abandon an OS I've paid for merely because Microsoft would prefer that I do so?
I'll let you know in next week's column whether my install plan worked, and how I went about it - certainly, I'll do a full system backup before I proceed.
But here are the upgrade paths by which you can move from Vista, to W7, without having to reinstall your programs: from Vista Home Basic to W7 Home Premium or W7 Ultimate; from Vista Home Premium to W7 Home Premium or Ultimate; from Vista Business to W7 Professional or Ultimate; and from Vista Ultimate to W7 Ultimate. For all other upgrades, you'll have to reinstall everything. Nor can you move backwards, for instance, from Vista Ultimate to W7 Home Premium or Professional without having to reinstall.
Meanwhile, details about the next Windows operating system - Windows8 - are starting to leak and of most interest is that it may be a 128-bit system. So what does that mean.
Currently, computers are sold in 32-bit and 64-bit versions, which refers to the ability of the computer to proces information; 64-bit systems have CPUs with more transistors and support larger amounts of system memory. They also move information between the processor and system memory much faster, which means the systems can more easily handle programs that require lots of system resources and can do so with greater speed, particularly for graphics processing.
This allows for development of programs that are not limited by system resources. A 128-bit Windows OS will take advantage of another leap in system structure capability and technology will advance where otherwise, it would be limited by staying with 32 or 64-bit systems.
Save Shipping Costs: If you're a customer of Amazon.com you're probably aware that Amazon offers free "super saver shipping" on orders over $25. But what if your order falls only a few dollars short?
For the difference in what you'll pay for shipping, you could order more merchandise. But finding something that costs exactly the difference between what you've already orderered, and $25, could be quite a chose.
Unless you visit http://www.filleritem.com.
There, you enter the amount you need to spend to reach the $25 free shipping limit, and click the search button. The site will tell you everything sold by Amazon at that exact price, and continue to list products that cost one penny, more, then two cents more, etc. It's not difficult to find something you can use. And you'll never again pay shipping costs from Amazon.
Chrome Extensions: Google finally has enabled extensions for its Chrome browser but you can't install them if you using the public version available at the Google Chrome home page: google.com/chrome. That installs a stable release, version 3.0. But you need a developer's version - a less stable version but one that runs perfectly fine for me at least.
You can get the latest developer's version which is now at 4.0 here: google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=devchannel. Once installed, right click on the Google Chrome desktop icon and select Properties. In the Shortcut tab, under Target, you'll see the path to Google Chrome. At the end of that path, add "(space)--enable-extensions" so that the line looks like this: "C:\Documents and Settings\tcomo\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe."
Now, open Google Chrome and do a search for Chrome Extensions. Find them, download and install them. The ability to add extensions puts Chrome on a part with Firefox, which has thousands of available extensions.
One of the more useful extensions is Google Chrome Backup, a small tool that creates and saves Chrome profiles holding all of your bookmarks, history and saved passwords. I also installed a session manager tool, a screensaver, and a tool that tracks an mail received at my Gmail account.
You can also modify Chrome with some interesting and appealing themes by clicking the tool icon at top right in the browser, selection Options, and under the Personal Stuff tab, selecting "Get Themes" at the bottom of the tab.
SIW Update: System Information for Windows (SIW) is a free, advanced tool that gathers fully detailed information about your system properties, settings, hardware and drivers, and displays it in a comprehensible manner. SIW now has been upgraded adding even more features, and may be downloaded from gtopala.com.
SIW can create a report file in text or HTML and delivers information in various categories:
Software Inventory: Operating System, Installed Software and Hotfixes, Processes, Services, Users, Open Files, System Uptime, Installed Codecs, Software Licenses (Product Keys / Serial Numbers / CD Key), Secrets (Password Recovery).
Hardware Inventory: Motherboard, Sensors, BIOS, CPU, chipset, PCI/AGP, USB and ISA/PnP Devices, Memory, Video Card, Monitor, Disk Drives, CD/DVD Devices, SCSI Devices, S.M.A.R.T., Ports, Printers.
Network Information: Network Cards, Network Shares, currently active Network Connections, Open Ports.
Network Tools: MAC Address Changer, Neighborhood Scan, Ping, Trace, Statistics
Miscellaneous Tools: Eureka! (Reveal lost passwords hidden behind asterisks), Monitor Test, Shutdown / Restart.
Real-time monitors: CPU, Memory, Page File usage and Network Traffic.
SIW is a standalone utility that does not require installation and runs directly from wherever you save the download.

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