Installing Windows 7 Pro

[pillar]

Ok so heres the deal. I just got Windows 7 Pro from USMC Stubster (thank you for sending me the OS) & need any helpful suggestions for those who have Win 7 Pro (or any Win 7 OS for that matter) installed. I currently have 4 hard drives (3 internal, 1 external). 2 of my internal drives, 1x300gb & 1x200gb, will be removed. However, I believe its my 300gb hard drive that is the primary hard drive. I know that I will have to wipe it clean in order to make another hard drive my primary hard drive. I have quite a bit of software/files that need to be either deleted or moved to my other hard drive, which is my 500gb hard drive. That hard drive will become my primary hard drive, however I have files that will need to be temporarily moved to my external, which is a 1tb hard drive, cut into 2 partitions (as you guessed both partitions are 500gb each (or as close to that as possible).

1 of the reasons im upgrading the OS is because my current OS (Win XP Pro) wont accept any version of Office suite software. Doesnt matter if its 2007 or 2000, theres always the same glitch bout a possible dll file or something else that causes it to not install, which is weird, seeing as I havent physically gone into the hard drive & deleted any dll files, esp since theyre important for such a software package. Another reason is that the Win XP Pro im using is 32-bit & for those of you who dont understand, the limit of memory on the 32-bit is 3.5gb. The reason that most gamers have 64-bit version of either Vista or 7 is because of the increased memory support of up to 16gb, which is plenty in my mind. Im currently using 4gb, but have plans to upgrade (temporarily) to 6gb, before finally settling at 8gb.

Now what I need to know is are there any other steps that I need to take to ensure proper installation & better functions of my computer?

 

[bizXn]

I cannot help but I have to say this: Nice! You upgraded to Win 7. Good timing too since the new games won't support Windows XP.

 

[Simon]

Your going to just have to backup whatever you want to the external HD. Now if you want the best system performance, use the HD that has the best stats. If one of those is 10000rpm, use it for the system

 

[pillar]

All hard drives are 7200 rpm. I will however backup all possible data.

 

[Prisoner416]

I'm waiting for Ultimate to go on sale. I need the Japanese support.

 

[Passerby]

just backup your stuff but i will recommend that you use 2 drives or partitions when you set everything up, 1 strictly for the operating system and applications for it and one strictly for your data.

doing that just really make it much easer to reinstall a os in the future because you can just formate and reinstall with out worrying about your stuff.

it's what i do i have one 500gb 10,000 rpm drive that is partitioned that is dedicated to all the operating systems i run than got 3 more 500gb 10,000 rpm drives for purely data storage.

and 4 more 500gb 10,000 rpm firewire drives for more storage and an other 4tb worth of network storage on my server.


edit: i dont really see any other considerations except for the ussuly getting of your drivers and stuff, and i run the same version of windows 7 pro

 

[pillar]

Well ill be using my external hard drive as my data storage, so itll be all good. Got alot of work ahead of me. Definitely cant wait for Win 7 to get on this system, but work & college take priority (not to mention sleep). The sooner I have everything moved over to my external hard drive, the sooner I get Win 7 on my computer.

 

[phalanx]

Like Passerby said, OS should be on its own dedicated drive (or partition) all other data on a separate drive(s).

When installing a new OS ALWAYS do a clean install. None of that upgrade from previous version nonsense.

 

[TremendousLion]

I cannot help but I have to say this: Nice! You upgraded to Win 7. Good timing too since the new games won't support Windows XP.

XP is still the most used OS of all time, don't count on new games not supporting it for a while...

 

[pillar]

Its not that im looking for games to support or run really well on Win 7, its the matter of things to run smoother on my system. Like I said in my original post, im currently running on 4gb, but due to my 32-bit version of Win XP Pro, its reduced to 3.5gb. Its hard to watch youtube videos on Firefox due to all the resources & memory it eats up. Have to watch youtube videos on IE because of that. I would have to say the biggest improvement for me will be the DirectX11. Ive been running on DirectX9 for like years now because of Win XP. DirectX10 & 11 was Vista (11 was latest version of Vista) & Win 7 is also DirectX11.

Also, I definitely wont do that upgrade junk, so dont worry bout that. I definitely plan to do a completely clean install. I know for a fact that the hard drive will run better on a clean install.