[wlpncp]

I need to upgrade my wife's laptop from Vista to Windows 7. I have the Windows 7 disk. How can I install Windows 7 without loosing her e-mails, e-mail contacts, desk image, etc?

Also, her computer (HP Pavilion dv6) takes forever to boot up, although she has very little stored on it (196 GB free of 285 GB). The computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.10 GHz, and the only added programs are Norton Security Suite, Immunet Protect, and Mozilla Firefox. What can I do to speed up the computer? Will just going to Windows 7 take care of this?

Thanks from a rookie husband who needs to be his wife's "hero" here.

[coastie65]

Ugh. I have a Gateway laptop with Vista that does the same thing. My Mom uses it, and I haven't realy spent much time with it except for getting it's updates. Probably have to go into MSCONFIG and ahev a look at the start up files and shut some down. In my case, I'm going to max out the memory on that thing as well. Moving from Vista To Windows 7 will be a help. When you use the Windows 7 disk, you should get an option to save the files or it may do so automatically. When done, you will see something saying "Old Files". Those are the files and you just need to move them into Windows 7. Someone should come along and give you a more in depth explaination of this,as I realize that i have been a bit sketchy.

[compnovo]

wlpncp, on 09 December 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

...Immunet Protect...
Thanks from a rookie husband who needs to be his wife's "hero" here.

A quick google search showed that you appear to be running two "active" antivirus programs at the same time, always a bad idea and sure to slow down your wife's computer. You will be an instant "hero" if you get rid of it.

(...from one wife "hero" to another...)

[coastie65]

Man, I completely read right past that in the post. Geez, Norton is bad enough on it's own as far as hogging resources then add Vista to that as well as the second A/V app. Yep, that will slow things down alright.

[LiveBrianD]

wlpncp, on 09 December 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

I need to upgrade my wife's laptop from Vista to Windows 7. I have the Windows 7 disk. How can I install Windows 7 without loosing her e-mails, e-mail contacts, desk image, etc?

Also, her computer (HP Pavilion dv6) takes forever to boot up, although she has very little stored on it (196 GB free of 285 GB). The computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.10 GHz, and the only added programs are Norton Security Suite, Immunet Protect, and Mozilla Firefox. What can I do to speed up the computer? Will just going to Windows 7 take care of this?

Thanks from a rookie husband who needs to be his wife's "hero" here.

How much ram does it have anyway? Click start, type msconfig, and remove unnecessary startup programs.

[wlpncp]

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 03:55 PM, said:

wlpncp, on 09 December 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

I need to upgrade my wife's laptop from Vista to Windows 7. I have the Windows 7 disk. How can I install Windows 7 without loosing her e-mails, e-mail contacts, desk image, etc?

Also, her computer (HP Pavilion dv6) takes forever to boot up, although she has very little stored on it (196 GB free of 285 GB). The computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.10 GHz, and the only added programs are Norton Security Suite, Immunet Protect, and Mozilla Firefox. What can I do to speed up the computer? Will just going to Windows 7 take care of this?

Thanks from a rookie husband who needs to be his wife's "hero" here.

How much ram does it have anyway? Click start, type msconfig, and remove unnecessary startup programs.

[wlpncp]

t has 4 GB RAM and the 64 Bit OS.

wlpncp, on 09 December 2011 - 05:28 PM, said:

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 03:55 PM, said:

wlpncp, on 09 December 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

I need to upgrade my wife's laptop from Vista to Windows 7. I have the Windows 7 disk. How can I install Windows 7 without loosing her e-mails, e-mail contacts, desk image, etc?

Also, her computer (HP Pavilion dv6) takes forever to boot up, although she has very little stored on it (196 GB free of 285 GB). The computer has an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 2.10 GHz, and the only added programs are Norton Security Suite, Immunet Protect, and Mozilla Firefox. What can I do to speed up the computer? Will just going to Windows 7 take care of this?

Thanks from a rookie husband who needs to be his wife's "hero" here.

How much ram does it have anyway? Click start, type msconfig, and remove unnecessary startup programs.

[LiveBrianD]

Oh fyi, Norton is rather bloated, and a piece of junk in general. Microsoft Security Essentials is pretty light, effective, and free, and is therefore my top choice. Avast Free is my second choice. get rid of both of those AV programs, as two running at once can really slow down the PC (I've never heard of Immunet btw). 4GB RAM is enough.

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 09 December 2011 - 05:31 PM

[wlpncp]

O.K. First, I will delete Norton and Immunet. Then I'll insert the Windows 7 disk and see what happens. Anything else I need to know before I jump into this?

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 05:31 PM, said:

Oh fyi, Norton is rather bloated, and a piece of junk in general. Microsoft Security Essentials is pretty light, effective, and free, and is therefore my top choice. Avast Free is my second choice. get rid of both of those AV programs, as two running at once can really slow down the PC (I've never heard of Immunet btw). 4GB RAM is enough.

[LiveBrianD]

It's not a good idea to do a windows upgrade, do a clean install. Note: this means you loose all programs and such.
To back up your firefox profile, go to
%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox
and copy the stuff in it. Put that folder back in the same place after reinstalling, download and install firefox, and your entire profile will be there like nothing happened.

I recommend backing up your documents to an external hard drive, thumb drive, or networked computer before doing this. However, windows will move the previous OS install's contents to \Windows.old, and moving your files back from there is extremely fast because the OS doesn't actually have to do much of anything (just changing the file indexes). How you backup your email client's stuff varies by program. Make a list of the programs you have, and find the CDs for them if needed. Download the drivers for your model and put them on a thumb drive, so you have them and can install them after installing Windows (your networking may or may not work OOTB - on my laptop the gigabit ethernet works OOTB, but the 802.11b/g/n wireless doesn't work at all). In fact, I'm reinstalling Windows 7 on my laptop right now, and I temporarily connected an ethernet cable so I could activate windows and such. (I don't have an ethernet switch in this room, the router is in another room, but I have the integrated ethernet port as well as a PCI ethernet card I bought a while ago for some other reason, so I bridged them so that I can connect the laptop with ethernet.)

This post has been edited by LiveBrianD: 09 December 2011 - 06:16 PM

[wlpncp]

So, it seems that it is not nearly as simple as Coastie65 said above: "When you use the Windows 7 disk, you should get an option to save the files or it may do so automatically. When done, you will see something saying "Old Files". Those are the files and you just need to move them into Windows 7." I hope a novice like me can follow your instructions. I really appreciate your guidance. Thank you.

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 06:13 PM, said:

It's not a good idea to do a windows upgrade, do a clean install. Note: this means you loose all programs and such.
To back up your firefox profile, go to
%appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox
and copy the stuff in it. Put that folder back in the same place after reinstalling, download and install firefox, and your entire profile will be there like nothing happened.

I recommend backing up your documents to an external hard drive, thumb drive, or networked computer before doing this. However, windows will move the previous OS install's contents to \Windows.old, and moving your files back from there is extremely fast because the OS doesn't actually have to do much of anything (just changing the file indexes). How you backup your email client's stuff varies by program. Make a list of the programs you have, and find the CDs for them if needed. Download the drivers for your model and put them on a thumb drive, so you have them and can install them after installing Windows (your networking may or may not work OOTB - on my laptop the gigabit ethernet works OOTB, but the 802.11b/g/n wireless doesn't work at all). In fact, I'm reinstalling Windows 7 on my laptop right now, and I temporarily connected an ethernet cable so I could activate windows and such. (I don't have an ethernet switch in this room, the router is in another room, but I have the integrated ethernet port as well as a PCI ethernet card I bought a while ago for some other reason, so I bridged them so that I can connect the laptop with ethernet.)

[LiveBrianD]

Well, I've never actually done an upgrade install (I'm just going by what I've heard).

Also, are you installing 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7? I'd recommend 64-bit, since it can access more than ~3.25GB RAM. fyi, you CAN'T upgrade from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit one, or vise versa.

[wlpncp]

The laptop with Vista is 64-bit

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 07:35 PM, said:

Well, I've never actually done an upgrade install (I'm just going by what I've heard).

Also, are you installing 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 7? I'd recommend 64-bit, since it can access more than ~3.25GB RAM. fyi, you CAN'T upgrade from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit one, or vise versa.

[LiveBrianD]

So yes, you can do an in-place upgrade here, but since upgraded installs tend to not be as stable and such, I would still recommend doing a complete reinstall.

[wlpncp]

What do you mean by "not as stable"? Could I try the in-place upgrade first and if that gives me problems, go back to the reinstall method?

LiveBrianD, on 09 December 2011 - 08:29 PM, said:

So yes, you can do an in-place upgrade here, but since upgraded installs tend to not be as stable and such, I would still recommend doing a complete reinstall.

[LiveBrianD]

I've heard that upgrade installs can mean the OS install is slower and such (like an old, bloated up windows install). Yeah, I guess you could do an in-place upgrade and later do a full reinstall if you decided to.

[wlpncp]

Thank you for your help. Happy holidays!

LiveBrianD, on 10 December 2011 - 11:53 AM, said:

I've heard that upgrade installs can mean the OS install is slower and such (like an old, bloated up windows install). Yeah, I guess you could do an in-place upgrade and later do a full reinstall if you decided to.