So, Which Should I Install First...

[Code Doc]

(1) Office 2010 (supposedly forthcoming)

(2) Windows 7

(3) Neither one. Stick with XP and 10-year-old software.

Just curious. Does it make any difference? Last I heard, Outlook Express is dead in Windows 7--another horror story to swallow.

[JuggaloBrotha]

I would install Win7 followed by Office 2007 (if you have it) I wont be installing Office 2010 until it's gone RTM

[Lord Orwell]

outlook express is dead yes, but it has been superceded by windows live mail, downloadable for free. This is one of those EU ruling things. The only thing they were allowed to leave in was an internet connection, and even then, eventually european users will get a choice screen eventually. If you want movie maker, etc, now, you have to get it from microsoft.com.

[Nightwalker83]

outlook express is dead yes, but it has been superceded by windows live mail, downloadable for free. This is one of those EU ruling things. The only thing they were allowed to leave in was an internet connection, and even then, eventually european users will get a choice screen eventually. If you want movie maker, etc, now, you have to get it from microsoft.com.

On the topic of Windows Live Mail does it allow to archive messages to open in Office Outlook later on? I have it on my Win7 laptop but installed Office Outlook 2003 because of the archive feature.

[si_the_geek]

Windows 7 in general is great, and there are several email clients you could use (including the MS one), many of which are better than Outlook Express.

I'd recommend going for that, and like JuggaloBrotha not installing a pre-release version of Office.

The only thing they were allowed to leave in was an internet connection, and even then, eventually european users will get a choice screen eventually.

It arrived on Windows Update earlier this week... but as my default browser is not IE, it has no effect on me (it is purely to offer alternative browsers to those who aren't aware of them).

Things like Windows Live have been optional updates since I installed Windows7 a month ago (and were on Vista for months before that).

[Jenner]

Windows 7 definitely, then Office 2010 when it's finally released.

Outlook Express sucked anyways. Go get Thunderbird. It's free. Get Firefox too while you're at it.

[JuggaloBrotha]

The full version of Outlook is terrible and Outlook Express is just plain god awful, they always have been.

ThunderBird and SunBird on the other hand have done extremely well for me.

[akhileshbc]

(1) Office 2010 (supposedly forthcoming)

(2) Windows 7

(3) Neither one. Stick with XP and 10-year-old software.

Just curious. Does it make any difference? Last I heard, Outlook Express is dead in Windows 7--another horror story to swallow.

Windows 7 first....

[Code Doc]

Well, OK, I'll take the plunge. Here's the situation. I have two computers running:

Old Machine: Bigger 320 Gb drive, slower MB clock, Win XP, no Apps, 1.3 GB Ram

Current Machine: Smaller 80 Gb drive, faster MB clock, Win XP, lots of Apps, 4 GB Ram

I'd like to install Win 7 on the bigger 320 Gb hard drive that I bought for the older machine but only after that hard drive is physically installed on my current, faster motherboard machine. But, that proposes major problems:

To take Win XP back to the slower machine (thus swapping drives) in order to make a painless transition, I have been told is virtually impossible without losing Apps left and right. Best bet seems to be to buy a new driveless but even faster machine, junk the old one entirely, install the 320 Gb drive in the new speed merchant, and then install Win 7 on it, overriding its XP.

Any recommendations? My head is spinning.

[Nightwalker83]

How long would it take you to reinstall the software on the machine? I was thinking you might want to take all the good bits out of the old pc and swap them with the stuff in the new pc. If there aren't a lot of *.doc ,etc (user created files) burn them to cd/dvd. After that do a fresh install of Win 7 on the 320GB hard drive.

[si_the_geek]

To take Win XP back to the slower machine (thus swapping drives) in order to make a painless transition, I have been told is virtually impossible without losing Apps left and right. Best bet seems to be to buy a new driveless but even faster machine, junk the old one entirely, install the 320 Gb drive in the new speed merchant, and then install Win 7 on it, overriding its XP.

Moving the drive to a different computer should not lose any apps or documents etc, and I don't think I've even heard of that happening. One potential exception I can think of is OEM software that comes with particular hardware (eg: DVD writing software that came with a DVD drive), which may only work with the same brand of hardware.

All that should happen is Windows detecting new hardware the first time you boot it... and as long as you have the drivers for the hardware (or they are included with Windows), everything should be fine.


To be on the safe side, back everything up before trying it (you could even use something like Ghost to copy the entire contents of the drive to the other one).

[Nightwalker83]

To be on the safe side, back everything up before trying it (you could even use something like Ghost to copy the entire contents of the drive to the other one).

That's what I was going to suggest but not knowing about the subject I decided not to.

[Code Doc]

Well there is one problem with the backup theory. It is good practice most of the time and generally you only lose about 0.2% of your files or less. That's about how many backed up files I found corrupted on my last upgrade in year 2008.

And, trying to get Outlook Express to even find backed up e-mail files on a hard drive or even a second hard drive is not well documented. That took me about a week to figure out last year. If I move to Win 7, I'll probably say good bye to Outlook or Outlook Express altogether anyway. Win 7 already did that for me.

However, this time I think I can live without both of them. Time to try something new. Spring is a season of change.

[brin351]

Why not partition your drive and set up a multiboot senario, generally best to partition your drive before you install your OS's. You can copy the contents of your xp drive into a partition on your other/new drive and install 7 on another partition. There are heaps of articles on doing this or you local computer store tech will help.

[Nightwalker83]

Why not partition your drive and set up a multiboot senario, generally best to partition your drive before you install your OS's. You can copy the contents of your xp drive into a partition on your other/new drive and install 7 on another partition. There are heaps of articles on doing this or you local computer store tech will help.

Yeah, and from what I recall Win7 creates a separate partition on the system to install the Windows/system files to anyway.

[brin351]

Yep from Vista and later(including the server OS's) MS have made the install process much better with new boot setup, partition at install time and volume re-sizing after installing. Unfortunately XP is not so flexable but it can be done.

[JuggaloBrotha]

Win2k and WinXP's partitioning tool is just as easy to use as the Vista/Win7's during the boot setup. The Vista/Win7's tool just got a face lift, but you click the same buttons to create/delete/format partitions during setup.

[Lord Orwell]

Win2k and WinXP's partitioning tool is just as easy to use as the Vista/Win7's during the boot setup. The Vista/Win7's tool just got a face lift, but you click the same buttons to create/delete/format partitions during setup.

it's not as powerful as the one in 7's. 7 has the ability to shrink the current partition without erasing any data in it. This lets you create a new partition for 7 to reside in.

[JuggaloBrotha]

it's not as powerful as the one in 7's. 7 has the ability to shrink the current partition without erasing any data in it. This lets you create a new partition for 7 to reside in.

The only time shrinking a partition has been useful to me is if I shrink the end partition to expand the first two partitions, which MS doesn't do in the setup partitioner nor the Computer Management Partitioner (in Windows). I've had to go with a Linux boot utility for that.

[Lord Orwell]

The only time shrinking a partition has been useful to me is if I shrink the end partition to expand the first two partitions, which MS doesn't do in the setup partitioner nor the Computer Management Partitioner (in Windows). I've had to go with a Linux boot utility for that.

that's because resizing the first partition is easy. You simply defrag and tell the os it's smaller afterwards. Resizing the second partition like you just said would require moving all the data in the partition farther down the list.

[mbutler755]

(1) Office 2010 (supposedly forthcoming)

(2) Windows 7

(3) Neither one. Stick with XP and 10-year-old software.

Just curious. Does it make any difference? Last I heard, Outlook Express is dead in Windows 7--another horror story to swallow.

Install Windows 7 from scratch. Do not do an upgrade. That's the best way to go. Install your other programs from there. You can always dual-boot your machine. I have a dual-boot environment with Windows XP and 7 Ultimate. I play games on the XP side and do all my work in Windows 7.

[Lord Orwell]

Install Windows 7 from scratch. Do not do an upgrade. That's the best way to go. Install your other programs from there. You can always dual-boot your machine. I have a dual-boot environment with Windows XP and 7 Ultimate. I play games on the XP side and do all my work in Windows 7.

if he puts that current drive in a new computer he wouldn't be able to run the upgrade anyway. The upgrade has to be ran from inside windows and there is no way xp will boot on the new system. If he still has his xp disks he would have to do a repair install of xp over itself first on the new machine then run the install program for 7.

[Code Doc]

if he puts that current drive in a new computer he wouldn't be able to run the upgrade anyway. The upgrade has to be ran from inside windows and there is no way xp will boot on the new system. If he still has his xp disks he would have to do a repair install of xp over itself first on the new machine then run the install program for 7.

That is precisely what the local tech support person for my computer told me today. Once you swap out a new hard drive to another machine, you have to rebuild Windows from scratch and all applications on that drive are lost and have to be reinstalled.

So, you might as well buy a new machine with Windows 7 either already on board or install it yourself so that you can listen to the final installation music that few people ever hear.

[JuggaloBrotha]

That is precisely what the local tech support person for my computer told me today. Once you swap out a new hard drive to another machine, you have to rebuild Windows from scratch and all applications on that drive are lost and have to be reinstalled.

So, you might as well buy a new machine with Windows 7 either already on board or install it yourself so that you can listen to the final installation music that few people ever hear.

Not 100%, If you don't have any dual boot setups going then you can go to the device manager in windows, delete everything then shut down the pc, move the drive to the other computer and windows will detect and install drivers for everything it can, at least I've done it that way just fine with Win95, Win98, WinME in the past, I haven't had a need to with WinXP or newer though.

Also with WinXP and newer, I'd imagine you'd have to re-activate it too.

[Lord Orwell]

That is precisely what the local tech support person for my computer told me today. Once you swap out a new hard drive to another machine, you have to rebuild Windows from scratch and all applications on that drive are lost and have to be reinstalled.

So, you might as well buy a new machine with Windows 7 either already on board or install it yourself so that you can listen to the final installation music that few people ever hear.

the repair install won't mess up installed applications.

[Lord Orwell]

Not 100%, If you don't have any dual boot setups going then you can go to the device manager in windows, delete everything then shut down the pc, move the drive to the other computer and windows will detect and install drivers for everything it can, at least I've done it that way just fine with Win95, Win98, WinME in the past, I haven't had a need to with WinXP or newer though.

Also with WinXP and newer, I'd imagine you'd have to re-activate it too.

this would work in win 95,98, and me, because they use a fat32 file system and the loader is dos-based. XP loads a device driver for the hard drive before booting, as part of the hardware abstraction layer. Since a new computer will almost always have a different hard drive controller, xp, vista, and 7 won't even be able to find the hard drive. You would need to run the repair install to build a new hardware abstraction layer.