Welcome to the third in the series of Windows 7 RTM diaries. This one is about upgrading 32-bit Vista to 32-bit Windows 7 on fairly average hardware.
In the previous two articles, I wrote about clean installs of 64-bit Windows 7 onto pretty high end hardware. Not everyone has a Core i7 and 12GB of RAM, however. And more than a few users will want to take the upgrade path (as opposed to a clean install) from 32-bit Windows.
So this time, we’re taking the upgrade path. I upgraded one of the gaming rigs that’s used for the Friday Night Follies LAN parties. This particular system has been running Vista Home Premium for about a year now.
So how did the upgrade go?
As I noted, I wanted to see how a 32-bit Windows 7 upgrade would go on fairly mundane hardware. Let’s take a look at the system specs for this particular system:
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 running at 3.16GHz
- Gigabyte GA-33M-DS2R micro-ATX motherboard running the Intel G33 chipset
- 2GB Kingston DDR2 @ 800MHz
- AMD Radeon HD 4870 graphics card w/1GB video memory
- 320GB Western Digital 7200RPM hard drive
- Lite-On 16x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
- Onboard Audio
- Silverstone SG03 MicroATX small form factor case
- Seasonic 600W PSU
Overall, this is a compact little system that delivers enough CPU and graphics horsepower for most modern games. But it is by no means bleeding edge, with “only” a dual core processor and 2GB of RAM.
Well, it had 2GB of RAM. The first thing I did was upgrade the memory to 4GB. While Windows 7 would run just fine in 2GB, some of the newer games do a little better with more memory. However, all the other parts in the system were left as-is.
So I pop the Windows 7 Home Premium disc into the system, and was told by Setup that “Upgrade is Disabled.” After a moment of head scratching, I realized I’d popped in the 64-bit version. As we all know, if you want to move from 32-bit Vista to 64-bit Windows 7, it has to be a clean install. After shuffling some discs, I discovered the DVD I’d burned 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.
I walked through the setup process for the upgrade. The setup advisor informed me that Windows mail was no longer included with Windows 7, but that Setup would save off my mail settings. That was reassuring, but I didn’t really need it with this particular system, since I’d never actually used Windows mail on it.
Thanks Loyd, That machine is somewhat similar to my “production box” at work (Dell Precision Workstation, C2D E6850 3GHz, 4GB RAM) which is running Vista Bus. 64 ATM – planning to take it to Win 7 Bus 64 and was really hoping not to have to totally repave it right now. So far, I’ve heard nothing but good reviews around doing an upgrade install, so over time I’m feeling more assured that everything should go ok.
Thanks, Loyd. I’m glad you are writing about this. It’s going to save me a lot of trouble in a few months. If you upgrade a system with NVidia drivers, please post about that experience too… good, bad or ugly.