Obscure Mania

What’s the best way to upgrade to Windows 7 from XP Pro or XP Home? You can’t, but you don’t have to format your drive either. If Windows 7 finds an operating system on the destination partition, it will ask you if you want to wipe it out or keep the old operating system.

Keep Your Stuff

What happens if you install Windows 7 over XP? Windows 7 will move your entire drive into a Windows.old directory it creates. When the new Windows 7 install is finished, when you boot it will ask you if you want to Boot into the new Windows 7 operating system or the old one. It doesn’t say XP it just says old. What happens if you boot into the old operating system? I don’t know. I did this on my wife’s machine and already messed it up once.

Rule #1

Always have a bootable CD (DVD) to restore your system. Make copies of your original install disks and keep the originals in a safe place and the copies in a safe place. My wife’s PC had a bad file and wouldn’t boot. I tried overwriting the file it said was bad with the same file from a different machine and it wouldn’t work. After hours of searching for some sort of ISO image for XP. A free ISO doesn’t exist on the net except as a torrent and how do you know which one to trust? You can’t even get a free trial from Microsoft anymore.

I finally gave up and installed a XP Home CD I had and got it to work. But then I figured I have a brand new Windows 7  the production release, (Schools received their copies early) and figured this was as good a time as any. Especially since my product key was for Pro and I had this Home disk I was going to have to do something else pretty soon anyway.

After installing 7 and restoring the data, I had to reinstall Office, but everything else I downloaded and found the keys in old email. Make sure you have enough space to keep both operating systems. The official space requirement for 7 is 16 gb a little more wouldn’t hurt so you have room to move folders around to your new user account on your data drive.

Personally I prefer a separate partition for my operating systems using Bootit NG (see side bar for link) as a boot manager, but if your going to only run one operating system on a drive and are a little concerned about wiping everything out, choosing installing over current operating system will work. Make sure you have backups somewhere else just in case.

I wouldn’t have made the switch to Vista, but I’m taking a Vista class and thought it would be a good idea to actually get used to it instead of just reading about it. Like many others, I went out of my way to find a PC with XP installed instead of Vista.

I wanted to install Vista in a different partition while still keeping my XP for several reasons. Just in case something didn’t work and also in case I need it for a class or if someone had a question about I had to actually look at.

There are several reasons to upgrade to Vista. Vista is safer and more secure to use on the Internet than XP. User Account Control has received a bad rap, but it’s worth a little inconvenience to keep unauthorized programs you might get from the Internet or email from running and screwing up your computer.

Vista has been out for awhile and you can get some good deals on sites like ebay.

The best way to migrate slowly to Vista is to use a separate disk drive or partition you drive into different driver. This way you’re able to install Vista in one partition, while keeping XP in another partition and when you boot your computer, you choose which operating system you want to go into.
Read the rest of this entry »

Computers are simple, right? Yeah, right. Everyone needs someone they can call to fix their computer. Ever try and call a support line and try to explain your problem over the phone? Or even trying to explain your problem in a short forum post asking for help?

The problem with trying to solve a problem searching for answers on the internet is you don’t know what programs to trust. Ever see ads that say something about how You May Have a Virus or Spyware? How about ads that popup advertising something to optimize your PC to make it faster? And those popups that say you can disable popups by downloading their program? Those programs are usually the ones that are loading spyware and junk on your pc. How are you supposed to know the difference? If you’re busy running your business, emailing friends or busy trucking stuff around, how are you supposed to know if these are spyware or not? Unless you’re connected into the PC world 24/7 you may not know.

Here’s your opportunity, right now. There’s a remote access service that allows support people (me) to connect with people that need assistance (you), securely, simply and efficiently. Click on the widget thing with Cross Loop or go to my CrossLoop page download the small program, create a free account which is optional, and email me about your problem. We coordinate a time when we can get together online, you start your Cross Loop, give me a random one time password and I now have access to your computer and can actually see what your problem is and can fix it right in front of you. You can change the settings to control if I have access to the keyboard or I can only watch in view only mode.

Watch this quick video to see how it works.

Yes I have to charge for my time. But if you use the Badge up above, create a free account, mention Obscure Mania and give me a “thumbs up” on the questionnaire after our session, I’ll give you a 30% discount for a limited time.

Or send this to your techie friend, it will be like they are looking over your shoulder and it will make things a lot easier for them when trying to help.