Well, I’ve been meaning to write this for awhile… one does have to take a holiday break every now and then… I got a twitter from the PCMover folks wanting me to explain more on my tribulations of using their product in trying to migrate a Windows XP pc to Windows 7.
The fact of the matter is… PCMover works just fine. The only real nudge or comment I would make to the PCMover folks is that their product needs a bit more explanation as to what is going on when you choose to make use of their “Migrate” to Windows 7 “feature”?
I mean, yes indeed you can go through some very simple steps using PCMover’s instructions for Upgrading a WinXP pc to Win7, however, what is not very clear is exactly what is going on and what you need to pay attention to. My suggestion, and this is primarily for those PC users who unlike me don’t have decades of experience as a Computer Scientist, is for the makers of PCMover to simplify their process of using their software to move a pc from WinXP to Win7. A “Wizard” maybe? That prints the instructions on what options to use with the Windows 7 upgrade?
The bottom line is that unless you pay close attention to what is going on and what you need to do, it would be real easy to mess up.
- So here’s a leg up on what you need to know… if you plan to move your WinXP pc to Win7…
The migration of your PC to Win7 can take too forms:
A New Install – This will wipe clean your existing PC; translated “You will Lose whatever is on your PC”.
-Now there are many reasons why you may want to do this. Refurbish that old Windows, door stop, I mean old still useful PC into something you might actually use. One thing about really older PC’s (especially Laptops). Really older PC’s (a.k.a. a PC that came with Windows 95/98 or DOS), you may have issues. And of course the issues will be with getting Windows 7 to work with older hardware. Simply, or annoyingly put, some old equipment is just too old. Regardless of the fact that Microsoft says that Windows 7 will work on older PC’s, there is a breaking point in which that old 386 Pentium PC simply is not a good choice for anything (well, except maybe DOS or Linux). The problem comes with not just performance but memory issues. Modern day Operating Systems, like Windows 7, expect lots of memory and lots of fast memory…the generations of Intel mother boards in the era of Windows 95/98, just don’t have the horsepower to get anything done well (I can already hear the hate mail about that statement)… Well, yack at me all you want… it is nevertheless true.
So, New Install – a clean system and perfect (given your PC is not too old)? Yes and sometimes No. Yes, in the sense you get rid of a lot of crap that hangs around your PC. No, in the sense that you may have some parts of your hardware that will not come up and running after the install. What the Hell?! As a wise book once said, “Don’t Panic”! The parts of your PC that don’t work can be mostly fixed (they’re exceptions). One thing you should do, if you are thinking about moving an old PC to Win7, you need to inventory and know what the parts of your PC are. Things like, the type and model of Lan, Video, and Sound cards you have or if those things are mostly built into PC- then you need to know what they are. Say What?! The older your PC the better chance that it has components that are not standardized…meaning that everyone… Yes, everyone that has built PC’s for any length of time, do not always use the best or standard parts. Given this, the trouble you will run into is with something called Hardware Drivers. But again, “Don’t Panic”! there are lots of resources in Cyberspace to help… the key is to know what you have before you start the quest to find a Hardware Driver. (Hint: Don’t wait until after you have wiped a working PC to go looking for a Hardware Driver- know what you have first and do some research… if there is not a compatible hardware driver for your PC that works with Win7, maybe you need to think again about moving to Win7).
Ok, enough said… The next form of migration is what some like to term as a in-place upgrade, OS only upgrade, migration of existing programs/user to a new operating system… bah bah. Truthfully, what is being done here is the Operating system is being change while preserving your installed software, user settings and documents. Now lots of people like to talk about what degree of “preserving” means… and yes you do need to understand that a bit. Some will talk about a full “preservation”- which simply means that the only thing that is changed is the actual operating system. Applications, hardware drivers, user settings and documents are all kept. Now, here is where folks get confused and statements like “you can’t upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7” come from. This type of upgrade can be done if you are moving from a “like” Vista OS to Windows 7- That means that if you are starting with Vista the 32bit version and you are upgrading to Windows 7 the 32bit version… then Yes you can do a full “preservation” upgrade (some like to call this a “in-place” upgrade- not really a good description). Ok, we’re not doing that (the title of this article is Windows XP to Windows 7). So what degree of “preservation” can we do… which is really the question you should ask and forget all of that other verbiage concerning “upgrade”… at least for the moment.
So, finally we are down to it… we want to move from Windows XP to Windows 7. What do you want to keep or “preserve” from Windows XP… applications? User Settings? Certainly, your user documents? Well, these are questions you should ask yourself and think about. Yes, indeed you can “preserve” just about everything, however, remember all of that about hardware drivers? There can be problems moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 when it comes to hardware. Now with Vista this is much less of an issue, because Windows 7 drivers are forward and backward (in most cases) compatible with Vista. Yes, in case I’ve lost you somewhere along the way, this is the single biggest hurdle when moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 (btw, it is the same issue you will run into moving from Windows XP to Vista). “Hardware” drivers. Your desire to “preserve” EVERYTHING…there’s a very good chance… not going to happen.
But, again, “Don’t Panic”- it’s not the end of the universe or this little planet… in comes some tools, like PCMover, to help you out. The steps to not losing any of your applications and user stuff while moving from Windows XP to Window7, is really not that complicated. Basically, migrating tools like PCMover, create either a complete copy of your existing PC’s settings/Applications/User stuff, or they make an “index” listing of what and where your stuff is.
The steps and what is going on:
Step One: Regardless… BACK UP YOUR PC! Does not matter what you use… BACK UP YOUR PC! If something even slightly goes wrong… losing everything? Yeah, BACK UP YOUR PC!
Step Two: With some tool like PCMover, do one of two things (or both)… run through the Tool’s function of preparing your old PC to Migrate- now in PCMover this can be done using their steps of Migrating from Windows XP to Windows7 or a simple just make a complete copy of your pc (PCMover calls these “Moving Vans”). Either way, you have to make something that can be used in Step Four- Putting your PC back in order.
-This step is important… mess this part up and you will need that “BACK UP YOUR PC” thing from Step One if you continue and complete Step Three. Nothing bad can happen until Step Three. So with PCMover, what do I need to do… well, in the latest version of PCMover you can either use the tradition method of loading a series of files with what you are preserving (Applications/Settings, etc), or you can use a little trick that is now built into PCMover. The trick is (and I’m sorry PCMover folks) not really hard to understand… PCMover will create a “index” that it can use to move your applications and settings back into place for the new operating system. How can it do that? Well, and you’ll see this in Step Three, the Windows 7 upgrade has a feature in that it will keep a copy of your existing stuff in a folder called Windows.Old (or something like that). Say what? Yes, and you will need lots of free disc space or at least access to lots of disc space, the Windows 7 upgrade has a feature to keep your existing pc in a place on your hard drive. Now the downside, as always there is one, using this method you will not be able to reformat your hard drive. That may or may not be an issue… it’s highly dependant on your old Windows XP PC. If you just hate that idea, you can always have PCMover use the tradition method of coping all of your stuff off of that system hard drive. Doing that method gives you the ability to re-format your system hard drive. The benefit of using the “index” to Windows.Old method is that it is much faster.
So, again you must decide what to do… I’ve done both methods and they both work. Anyway, you will either, after this step, have a lot of what PCMover calls Van file(s) or you will have a single “Van”/”Index” file. Either way, you will need to know where this is for Step Four.
Step Three: DANAGER DANAGER… this is the step where you start to actually mess with your existing PC. So, if you skipped steps One and/or Two… maybe you should go back and at least read them. You have Been Warned!
By what every means you need to get Windows 7 and a valid product key (I’m thinking, actually buying a copy is the best idea). You need to start the upgrade process… Now, slow down! In order not to not really screw up, You did read Step One? Ok, I’ll stop harping on it. To “preserve” anything from your Windows XP pc, you must do something in Step Two… if you don’t want to use PCMover, there are other choices. Just make sure you follow what you are told to do. You must have something that will allow you to re-create your system, because while we will call this migration an Upgrade, the fact remains it is still a complete install of a very different operating system. And yes, that means that your Windows will be replaced, taken apart, and something new will be running when you are don’t (it’s ok to panic a little, but never fear). The Windows 7 upgrade will allow you to, really, three things:
- New Install: use this if for whatever reason you really don’t want to keep anything… just remember that your hardware may still not come completely back (especially, if you have not read all of this article).
- Two types of upgrades: The in-place upgrade, that will Only work when moving from a version of Vista and then an upgrade that looks like a New Install, but allows you some options.
What you want is to get to installing with some options, mainly do not format your system drive and select to keep a copy of your existing system. Now if you used the traditional method of creating a full copy (Van files in PCMover terms), then yes you can format your hard drive. But, if you want to use the “index” approach and have the upgrade save everything in a Windows.Old folder, make sure you do not format.
Now, after lots of Microsoft stuff going on and messing with your PC, you will reach the point where Windows 7 should be running. (Don’t install any updates from Microsoft just yet).
Step Four: Putting your PC back in order (hopefully). Now you need to re-install PCMover (or whatever you used in step two). And for clarity, in PCMover this time the PC is the “NEW” PC. You will either need to locate those “Van” files or that “index” file (I think the “index” file is also a VAN file, but it’s small and there’s only one of them). If you used the traditional method (i.e. lots of Van file(s)) then you don’t have to worry about there being a Windows.Old directory. In any case, you need to start the re-building of the PC applications. After this completes, you may need to restart your computer. After restarting, you should test run your old applications. Some may not work… again “Don’t Panic”. Windows 7 has a very excellent compatibly mode that can be set for each application. Once you’re to a stable point, make sure you do Windows Update… there’s a very good chance that there are better hardware drivers out on Microsoft Update than what was installed.
Now in an ideal world in a parallel universe, you should be ok… the only real issue I ran into was with using PCMover to rebuild some of the Microsoft suite of development tools like Visual Studio and there were other minor issues with some applications that were resolved by running them in compatibly mode under Windows 7. Over all, even my older laptop seems to be working just fine…and I didn’t lose anything.
~cse
cse
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