Win7 upgrade on laptop takes forever

[Bob H]

I bought an Acer laptop a few months ago and found I could get a free
upgrade to windows 7. The lappy presently has win Vista Home on it and
last night I stuck the upgrade disc in the drive, wher I found I could
have done a custom install, but selected 'upgrade' instead.
Anyway after almost 24 hours since I inserted the disc, it is now on 86%
of gathering files, settings and programs. I knew I should have chosen
'custom install, instead.

 

[Rich]

I bought an Acer laptop a few months ago and found I could get a free
upgrade to windows 7. The lappy presently has win Vista Home on it and
last night I stuck the upgrade disc in the drive, wher I found I could
have done a custom install, but selected 'upgrade' instead.
Anyway after almost 24 hours since I inserted the disc, it is now on 86%
of gathering files, settings and programs. I knew I should have chosen
'custom install, instead.

You're correct. I had the same situation with a Dell Inspiron. I chose
custom install on the recover partition & had a dual boot with Vista. It
took less than hour. I'll just delete Vista when my daughter has no use for
it.

Rich

 

[Dabbler]

You're correct. I had the same situation with a Dell Inspiron. I chose
custom install on the recover partition & had a dual boot with Vista.
It took less than hour. I'll just delete Vista when my daughter has no
use for it.

At least, you guys, got the upgrade disk. As I am not eligible for free
upgrade from HP, I wanted to buy it at my local BestBuy store and was
surprised that they'd had run out of them. It's kinda' ironic because
this BestBuy is almost a stonethrow away from Microsoft's HQ. So I
ordered it on Amazon and who knows when I get it.
But putting that aside, I am interested how that dual boot situation
works with Win7 because I was considering doing it as well. Does it work
pretty much the same way Vista does it? I'd like to set aside a
partition in my notebook just for the 64-bit Win7 and do a clean install
there with the win7 upgrade package. Is that what you did, too?

 

[Rich]

At least, you guys, got the upgrade disk. As I am not eligible for free
upgrade from HP, I wanted to buy it at my local BestBuy store and was
surprised that they'd had run out of them. It's kinda' ironic because this
BestBuy is almost a stonethrow away from Microsoft's HQ. So I ordered it
on Amazon and who knows when I get it.
But putting that aside, I am interested how that dual boot situation works
with Win7 because I was considering doing it as well. Does it work pretty
much the same way Vista does it? I'd like to set aside a partition in my
notebook just for the 64-bit Win7 and do a clean install there with the
win7 upgrade package. Is that what you did, too?

My daughter's laptop was purchased in July with Vista installed & eligible
for a "free" upgrade to Windows 7. There was a 15 G recovery partition for
Vista when the computer first arrived. When the Windows 7 upgrade disk
arrived, I intended to wipe the entire hard drive & custom install from
scratch. I booted from the Windows 7 DVD & chose "custom Install". When
presented with the partition arrangement on the computer, I saw the 15 G
recovery partition at the beginning of the hard drive & the main Vista
partition (about ~140 G). Since the Vista recovery partition would be
obsolete on a Windows 7 computer, I opted to install on that partition. My
thinking was that my daughter would have access to the old Vista partition
as a data partition only for a while in case she forgot about data files she
may need later. I then intended to wipe out the Vista partition & extend the
Windows 7 partition to the entire drive.
However, when the computer restarted, I discovered that the installation
automatically set the computer with a fully functional dual boot with
Windows 7 as the primary choice. When the computer starts, a black screen
appears with Windows 7 & Vista listed as choices. If you don't arrow down to
Vista, Windows 7 starts automatically within 30 seconds. Both operating
systems worked fine. Realizing that my daughter could now take her time
setting up Windows 7 & installing her programs at leisure while still having
Vista to boot into if she needed to use the computer already set up, I then
realized that the 15 G Windows 7 partition would need to be larger. So I
downloaded BootIt NG & created a boot CD to resize the partitions. Since the
extra space was needed at the beginning of the Vista partition, I was unable
to accomplish this within Windows disk management. Outside of Windows with
BootIt NG (or any 3rd party partition manager), I shrunk the Vista
partition to take up all the remaining space. This left empty space after
the Vista partition. Next, I moved the Vista data to the end of the empty
space (with BootIt). This moved the empty space to the front of the Vista
partition & behind the Windows 7 partition. Then I expanded the Windows 7
partition into the empty space & rebooted into Windows 7. Now I had 2
partitions of equal size. I had left about 5 G of space on the Vista
partition. The Windows 7 partition now had about 60 G of extra space which
was plenty of room to install my daughter's programs. My daughter has not
used Vista since I installed Windows 7 so at any time now I will just boot
into BootIt NG & delete the Vista partition, expand the Windows 7 partition
to the entire 160 G hard drive & adjust the boot menu to eliminate the dual
boot option.
If you need a shorter, more succinct explanation of what to do, just respond
& I will post a step-by-step procedure.

Rich

 

[Bob H]

Well after approximately 30+ hours the upgrade process was almost
complete, as it then need some user input for local settings etc, which
I completed last night.
Its a good job I didn't need my laptop as I would have stopped the
upgrade and gone for a custom install.
Anyway after activation, all is well so far.

Waht you did Rich probably sounds longer than what bit actually took to
do, as I have a dual boot situation on my desktop.

cheers

 

[Dabbler]

My daughter's laptop was purchased in July with Vista installed &
eligible for a "free" upgrade to Windows 7. There was a 15 G recovery
partition for Vista when the computer first arrived. When the Windows
7 upgrade disk arrived, I intended to wipe the entire hard drive &
custom install from scratch. I booted from the Windows 7 DVD & chose
"custom Install". When presented with the partition arrangement on the
computer, I saw the 15 G recovery partition at the beginning of the
hard drive & the main Vista partition (about ~140 G). Since the Vista
recovery partition would be obsolete on a Windows 7 computer, I opted
to install on that partition. My thinking was that my daughter would
have access to the old Vista partition as a data partition only for a
while in case she forgot about data files she may need later. I then
intended to wipe out the Vista partition & extend the Windows 7
partition to the entire drive.
However, when the computer restarted, I discovered that the
installation automatically set the computer with a fully functional
dual boot with Windows 7 as the primary choice. When the computer
starts, a black screen appears with Windows 7 & Vista listed as
choices. If you don't arrow down to Vista, Windows 7 starts
automatically within 30 seconds. Both operating systems worked fine.
Realizing that my daughter could now take her time setting up Windows
7 & installing her programs at leisure while still having Vista to
boot into if she needed to use the computer already set up, I then
realized that the 15 G Windows 7 partition would need to be larger. So
I downloaded BootIt NG & created a boot CD to resize the partitions.
Since the extra space was needed at the beginning of the Vista
partition, I was unable to accomplish this within Windows disk
management. Outside of Windows with BootIt NG (or any 3rd party
partition manager), I shrunk the Vista partition to take up all the
remaining space. This left empty space after the Vista partition.
Next, I moved the Vista data to the end of the empty space (with
BootIt). This moved the empty space to the front of the Vista
partition & behind the Windows 7 partition. Then I expanded the
Windows 7 partition into the empty space & rebooted into Windows 7.
Now I had 2 partitions of equal size. I had left about 5 G of space on
the Vista partition. The Windows 7 partition now had about 60 G of
extra space which was plenty of room to install my daughter's
programs. My daughter has not used Vista since I installed Windows 7
so at any time now I will just boot into BootIt NG & delete the Vista
partition, expand the Windows 7 partition to the entire 160 G hard
drive & adjust the boot menu to eliminate the dual boot option.
If you need a shorter, more succinct explanation of what to do, just
respond & I will post a step-by-step procedure.

Thanks Rich, I've got it. I used to do a lot of that kind of stuff with
PartitionMagic. I just never heard about this BootIt NG before. What
made you think that the small recovery partition would be enough for
Win7? I have even a smaller one, about 8GB, so I better move and shrink
the Vista partition to the end of the HD before I start
custom-installing the 64-bit Win7 when it arrives. I like the fact, that
in such situation the Win7 installer is smart enough to set up the dual
boot automatically. I can't wait ....

 

[Rich]

Thanks Rich, I've got it. I used to do a lot of that kind of stuff with
PartitionMagic. I just never heard about this BootIt NG before. What made
you think that the small recovery partition would be enough for Win7? I
have even a smaller one, about 8GB, so I better move and shrink the Vista
partition to the end of the HD before I start custom-installing the 64-bit
Win7 when it arrives. I like the fact, that in such situation the Win7
installer is smart enough to set up the dual boot automatically. I can't
wait ....

Gee, I never even hesitated at the 15 G size for the installation. It just
seemed like plenty because I don't ever recall ever reading where a double
digit size partition was needed for a Windows OS only install. Anyway, the
installation would have stopped me in my tracks at the beginning if the
partition was too small & I would have just done what you plan to do with
your 8G partition....expand it first.
Have fun.

Rich

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Gee, I never even hesitated at the 15 G size for the installation.

I'm with you entirely. 15GB may sound like a lot in numbers, but in
dollars it's very little. For example a 160GB drive (fairly small
these days, and the bigger the drive, the cheaper it is per gigabyte)
sells for around $70US or so. That's $.44 per gigabyte, or just over
$6.50 for the 15GB.

For almost all of us, $6.50 is a number small enough not to have to
worry about it.

 

[Dabbler]

Gee, I never even hesitated at the 15 G size for the installation. It
just seemed like plenty because I don't ever recall ever reading where
a double digit size partition was needed for a Windows OS only
install. Anyway, the installation would have stopped me in my tracks
at the beginning if the partition was too small & I would have just
done what you plan to do with your 8G partition....expand it first.
Have fun.

Well, I've already repartioned my HD, shrinking the Vista partition to
86 GB and stretching the Recovery partition (to be replaced with the
64-bit Win7) to 146 GB. I also swapped their location on the HD, so now
Vista is at the end, allowing to use it also for Win7 easier, should the
need arise.

After trying to use a gParted Live CD for the repartitioning, it almost
ruined the NTFS file system. Fortunately Vista was able to repair it
without losing any data. After that I also created a BootIt NG CD (ver.
1.86b) to do the job again and that worked. So I am pretty much ready to
install Win7 when it finally arrives from Amazon's contractor.

I figure I'll keep Vista till I'm sure I have all the programs I use
there also work on Win7 64 and then I'll either add its space to Win7 or
make it a Linux partition.

By the way, I wonder if most of the speed improvements on Win7 are due
to a redesign of the OS to really take advantage of multiprocessors, or
it's just written with leaner, more efficient code. Maybe both ...

 

[Rich]

Well, I've already repartioned my HD, shrinking the Vista partition to 86
GB and stretching the Recovery partition (to be replaced with the 64-bit
Win7) to 146 GB. I also swapped their location on the HD, so now Vista is
at the end, allowing to use it also for Win7 easier, should the need
arise.

After trying to use a gParted Live CD for the repartitioning, it almost
ruined the NTFS file system. Fortunately Vista was able to repair it
without losing any data. After that I also created a BootIt NG CD (ver.
1.86b) to do the job again and that worked. So I am pretty much ready to
install Win7 when it finally arrives from Amazon's contractor.

I figure I'll keep Vista till I'm sure I have all the programs I use there
also work on Win7 64 and then I'll either add its space to Win7 or make it
a Linux partition.

By the way, I wonder if most of the speed improvements on Win7 are due to
a redesign of the OS to really take advantage of multiprocessors, or it's
just written with leaner, more efficient code. Maybe both ...

I'm not a computer professional. All I know is what I read. Some say Windows
7 kernel was changed from Vista, some say it is merely Vista "SP3" & some
say that it is Vista the way it should have been released....lean &
efficient. Who knows? I use XP on an hardware upgraded original Win95, 11
year-old computer. I've used Vista for 2 years on my kids' desktops & it
always felt sluggish. Windows 7 immediately installed & booted faster &
looked & operated quickly & cleaner. My 15 year-old daughter took to Windows
7 immediately & has yet to boot back into Vista for anything. This surprised
me because she loved Vista with all its doo-dads & visual effects.
Performance wasn't an issue for her.
I have a student copy of Windows7 Pro that I am tempted to install on this
old computer just to see if it would run. I ran the advisor on it & it said
it was ready to go with the exception of upgrading my 768mb of RAM (already
maxed out) to at least 1 GB. Maybe if I'm bored one weekend I'll try it.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I'm not a computer professional. All I know is what I read. Some say Windows
7 kernel was changed from Vista, some say it is merely Vista "SP3" & some
say that it is Vista the way it should have been released....lean &
efficient. Who knows?

There some truth in *all* those statements. Any new version of any
piece of software is in some sense new and different and in another
sense, an upgrade/improvement to the previous version. No piece of
software is *completely* new, written by people with no knowledge of
what came before.

As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter at all. Statements like
those you quote above are all meaningless, simply because they are all
in a sense right, and because they pertain to all software. So making
such statements should always be avoided, and if you read them. should
always be ignored.

I use XP on an hardware upgraded original Win95, 11
year-old computer. I've used Vista for 2 years on my kids' desktops & it
always felt sluggish.

If it felt sluggish, your kids' desktops had inadequate hardware for
it (most likely, not enough RAM).

Windows 7 immediately installed & booted faster &
looked & operated quickly & cleaner. My 15 year-old daughter took to Windows
7 immediately & has yet to boot back into Vista for anything. This surprised
me because she loved Vista with all its doo-dads & visual effects.
Performance wasn't an issue for her.
I have a student copy of Windows7 Pro that I am tempted to install on this
old computer just to see if it would run. I ran the advisor on it & it said
it was ready to go with the exception of upgrading my 768mb of RAM (already
maxed out) to at least 1 GB. Maybe if I'm bored one weekend I'll try it.

It will very likely run on that old computer, but the performance will
very likely be poor.

 

[Dabbler]

... Windows 7 immediately installed & booted faster & looked &
operated quickly & cleaner. My 15 year-old daughter took to Windows 7
immediately & has yet to boot back into Vista for anything. This
surprised me because she loved Vista with all its doo-dads & visual
effects.

Well, I finally installed the 64-bit Win7, too, and it went without a
hitch. First I tried to run the install CD from Vista, but that was
refused by some message that I had the wrong CD or some such. Then I
tried to boot up with the CD and that worked because I knew I had to
choose the Custom install option. The install also created a dual boot
situation, so I could still boot into my Vista partition, too. I also
liked the fact that no matter which system I booted into, the system
drive became the C: drive, the other became D:. Neat!
An extra benefit I got from Win7 that the built-in Bluetooth that was
made unusable by a late summer Vista update is usable again in Win7.
That is proof positive that it was not a hardware failure with
Bluetooth. So all in all, I am pretty happy camper now though I need to
spend some time exploring the new interface.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Dabbler.

Just a slight correction - for those reading over our shoulders...

Win7 (like Vista) is much too big (over 3 GB) for a CD. It comes on a
DVD-ROM.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[Dabbler]

Just a slight correction - for those reading over our shoulders...

Win7 (like Vista) is much too big (over 3 GB) for a CD. It comes on a
DVD-ROM.

You're right, of course. It's hard to break a habit ...