Installing Windows 7 on a Vista 64 machine - talk me through it urban!

[mhendo]

Make a shared data drive so you can access all the same stuff on both operating systems. Leave 20-30 GB for each Windows install and make the data partition as big as possible.

Can i just make a quick comment about this specific issue?

In a Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation, i would leave a LOT more than 20-30GB for the OS partition. For all the improvements that Windows 7 brings with it (and there are quite a lot), a smaller footprint is not one of them.

My almost-brand-new Windows 7 (64Bit) installation (an upgrade from Vista) is already up over 20GB, and i've still got a bunch of new programs left to install. The pagefile takes up 6GB, which is what i expected, but something else that really starts to eat into disk space is a folder called WINSXS.

If i understand my reading correctly, this is a folder that helps prevent compatibility problems and allows easy rollbacks. One of the ways it does this is to save multiple copies of .dll and other program-related files. Every time you add (or even upgrade) a program, the WINSXS folder increases in size. Mine is already almost 6GB, and there are numerous stories on the web of people with WINSXS folders well over 20GB

And this is not a folder where you can simply start deleting stuff in order to save disk space. Deleting subfolders or files without knowing what you're doing could well and truly bork your Windows installation. Also, Windows itself apparently has no mechanism or process for consolidating the files or reducing the size of the WINSXS folder.

Now, in an era of cheap hard drive space, it's not a huge problem. My Win7 partition is 120GB, so i'm not likely to lose too much sleep over an extra 5 or 10 gigs. But this is also happening at a time when Solid State Drives are becoming cost-effective for OS installation, and SSDs are, in general, much smaller drives than regular hard drives. I've read accounts on the net of people who installed Vista or Win7 on 32GB or even 64GB SSDs and are now running out of space.

Google "winsxs" and you'll find out a whole lot more information about the whole issue, although you will also run into a whole bunch of contradictory opinions and information.

 

[bonjour]

Actually, I'll choose where I like to post my requests for help, and I choose to post them here. If you don't like that - well, tough titty, sunshine.
Don't be a prick. Now please stop disrupting this thread with your annoying and useless wankery.

 

[editor]

Can i just make a quick comment about this specific issue?

In a Windows Vista or Windows 7 installation, i would leave a LOT more than 20-30GB for the OS partition. For all the improvements that Windows 7 brings with it (and there are quite a lot), a smaller footprint is not one of them.

Cheers for the info, but I've got a big, fat 1TB drive waiting for Windows 7 so I should be fine

 

[mhendo]

Cheers for the info, but I've got a big, fat 1TB drive waiting for Windows 7 so I should be fine

Yeah, for most people it won't be a problem.

I do, however, like to partition my drives and keep the OS on a separate partition from all my files and such. After reading about the WINSXS issue, i made my Windows partition quite a bit bigger than i had originally intended, just to stay out of trouble. I dual-boot with Ubuntu 9.10, and my linux partition is far smaller.

 

[ymu]

I'm being weird and useless because I suggested you should contact the supplier site or access their forums for the best information/advice related to your problem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban75
Better sort that out pronto ED

Yes. You're being very weird indeed. You don't know these forums well enough to make the assumptions you do.

 

[ymu]

And this is not a folder where you can simply start deleting stuff in order to save disk space. Deleting subfolders or files without knowing what you're doing could well and truly bork your Windows installation. Also, Windows itself apparently has no mechanism or process for consolidating the files or reducing the size of the WINSXS folder.

Microsoft strikes again.

 

[mauvais]

Haven't we had this thread before? Unless you're working to intense deadline, in which case you don't have time for this anyway, I would just bite the bullet and install 7 as the main OS and reinstall apps as I went. Then all you have to do is copy the appdata folder and it's as it was before. Once 7 is installed and updated, we're only talking an hour or two to do this.

 

[Sunray]

Haven't we had this thread before? Unless you're working to intense deadline, in which case you don't have time for this anyway, I would just bite the bullet and install 7 as the main OS and reinstall apps as I went. Then all you have to do is copy the appdata folder and it's as it was before. Once 7 is installed and updated, we're only talking an hour or two to do this.

There is no need to do this.

Just install W7 on the nice big disk, keep the old Vista partition in case things go wrong. It installs itself as the main OS but gives you the option to boot to the old OS at start up.

W7 install is so simple it really doesn't require a 2 page thread on the subject.

 

[editor]

W7 install is so simple it really doesn't require a 2 page thread on the subject.

I'm just prevaricating. It's weird: when it comes to fixing other people's computers, I'm straight in there, confidently installing files, changing hardware configurations and the like: but when it comes to my own PC, I turn into a dithering wuss.

 

[ohmyliver]

I stuck my fingers in my ears and went lalalala to all good tech practice and did an inplace upgrade. It's been relativly painless. Not had much in the way of problems. Was slow to boot initially but defragging sorted that out. I did also install the latest ati drivers after the upgrade which may have helped (as part of the slowmess was that it was slow to show icons on the desktop.) i'd also recommend getting the latest dell bios update. If you've not done that already obv.

 

[Sunray]

I'm just prevaricating. It's weird: when it comes to fixing other people's computers, I'm straight in there, confidently installing files, changing hardware configurations and the like: but when it comes to my own PC, I turn into a dithering wuss.

Yeah, It not nice if all goes wrong and then your without a PC. I expect your data is a lot more valuable than anything I have.