

You can de-select things you don't want to migrate, and add things that you may be storing on other drives. It will scan your Windows XP installation drive for things that can be migrated and show you a list of them.

Navigate the Windows 7 DVD folder tree to the \support\migwiz folder and run the migsetup.exe program. Windows Easy Transfer) is a utility on the Windows 7 installation DVD that will help you do that. So before you reformat your Windows XP drive, you may wish to save applications, user data, and customized settings to be re-installed under Windows 7 later. In English, that means EVERYTHING on your hard drive will be erased - all your documents, music, photos, software, and the operating system will be gone. Option 1: Reformat and Install Windows 7 (Total Wipeout) Now, let's move on to the two sane options above. Avoid the waxy buildup, install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on a newly-formatted drive, and you'll avoid a gigabyte of trouble in the long run. There's one exception I'll make, and here's the scenario: If formatting your hard drive would cause you to lose files or software that's not replaceable, and you already have a copy of Vista laying around, and you're willing to risk the fallout, then doing a "double upgrade" might possibly make sense.īut don't tell anyone that I recommend that. You wouldn't really buy Vista to keep for only a couple of hours, would you? Also, putting your operating system through the rigors of two major upgrades greatly increases the risk of an inoperating system. Let's start with Option 3, just to get it out of the way.

you can't directly upgrade an existing Windows XP installation to Windows 7. How to Upgrade From Windows XP to Windows 7įirst, the bad news.
