I am currently running Windows XP on my home computer and am curious about upgrading to Windows 7. I never made the jump to Windows Vista because of all the previous problems I have heard about that operating system.

I am in a little bit of a jam though, and I don't know which direction to go. My computer is a Dell that I got from my parents and do not have a restore disc for the operating system and it does not have the restore OS copy on the hard drive either. So I have no way of reformatting the machine without purchasing a new OS. This computer has not been reformatted at all since it was originally built in 2004. It runs really good, I have done a lot of work to clean out the registry and so forth.

Well I have seen that I can upgrade using the Windows 7 Upgrade. The only thing I have heard beware of is the fact that it will require a clean install, which I am perfectly fine with. The main concern I have is do you have to have a Windows XP or Windows Vista disc to do this? I remember back with Windows 98 when you upgraded to 98, from 95, it would wipe the system clean. Then you would have to stick in your old 95 disc to prove you had the original copy of 95 and were not just trying to scam the system.

I would really like to use the upgrade because I can get a copy of Windows Professional Upgrade for around $29.99 since I am a student. This is through Microsoft's program, you can find it by googling The Ultimate Steal.

 

First I would recommend not upgrading that machine to Windows 7 or Vista.. It will not be powerful enough and the hardware may be to old to have windows 7 drivers..

Your best bet is to either stay with Windows XP or buy a new pc with Windows 7..

If you want to reformat with windows XP any Dell XP restore cd will work.. With so many Dells sold you must know someone who has a disc.. You can also contact Dell and get the CD's for a small fee.. I think around $20.00..

As far as upgrading using an XP upgrade disc you will need an original cd..

Not sure about Windows 7 if it is the same.. It is to new and I haven't dealt with that yet..

 

I have put Windows 7 on older machines and have had very few problems with them. 7 is much more forgiving than Vista and will take XP drivers (won't take 64-bit XP drivers, though, on the 64-bit version of 7). I have seen 7 run on as little as 512 Meg of RAM, but not very well - 1 Gig minimum seems to be its limit.

However, donjamer is correct - upgrading an older PC to 7 can be more trouble than it's worth and you do so at your own risk. I'm just stubborn enough to find a way to make it work lol... I've got an old laptop that's about the same vintage as your PC and it's running 7 - but only after I upgraded the RAM and CPU...

Any Windows 7 disc can be used to either perform an upgrade or a clean install. I would recommend a clean install as the upgrades never seem to go quite right and can be glitchy... On a clean install, delete the partition but do not create a new one - it will do so automatically and seems to prefer it that way...

For what they've got 7 priced at, you can damn near buy a PC with 7 pre-installed for the same price (depending on which version of 7 you go with)...

Also, check here for more info:
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

 

I won't have a problem with the hardware, the computer can definitely take Windows 7.

7 Requires:

1 Ghz Processor; 1 GB of RAM (32 - bit) 2 GB of RAM (64 - Bit)

I have

3 Ghz Processor; 4 GB of RAM

I used the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and passed with flying colors.

And as far as the price goes, like I said I can get it for $29.99, far less then the price of an entire new system.

 

Warning: I have not done this personally.

However, it is my understanding that you cannot upgrade an XP OS in place. It must be a clean install.

Even though it is a clean install, the Win7 install disk will find your old XP OS on the disk. As long as the old OS passed the Genuine test, it will install successfully.

I believe the above is true, even if you were to Fdisk manually. However, I would not do that, I would let the Win7 setup do the partition, which will ensure that it can find the XP OS.

The only way you should have a problem with the above is if you were installing on a fresh hard drive. Which unfortunately is probably your best bet. In that case you will need to borrow a CD.