[Virtualacorn-list] VRPC on Vista Home Premium being upgraded to Windows 7

[Michael Ben-Gershon]

On 02/03/10 23:56, ATimbrell at aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 03/02/2010 17:51:06 GMT Standard Time,
> Alan.Birtles at ukgateway.net writes:
>
>    
>> I apologize if this has been covered in detail before.
>> My main  question is this;
>> VRPC is running well on my Vista Home Premium PC  (32bit) but if Vista is
>> upgraded to windows 7 (64 bit) will it still  operate afterwards or does it
>> need to be uninstalled before the upgrade  and then reinstalled afterwards
>>      
>

Any move from 32 bit to 64 bit requires a completely fresh install of 
the OS, followed by reinstalling ALL the original software.
This does NOT mean that you cannot purchase an upgrade version of the 
OS, as the u/g version just checks there is an existing Windows 
installation on the hard disk before doing the fresh install. The 
installer preserves the old 'Program Files'. Windows and 'Documents and 
Settings' folders in a safe place, so they may be accessed later when 
software is being reinstalled.

I have just completed upgrading my Windows XP machine (32 bit) to 
Windows 7 (64 bit) and it was far less painful than I had envisaged, 
although the reinstallation of software was very time consuming. It was 
probably about time as this machine was originally running Windows 95 
and was upgraded over the years to 98 and then XP (32 bit) without ever 
having a fresh install (although the processor, motherboard, hard disks 
and graphics cards have been upgraded many times over the years).

Main comments on the procedure:

Some software just failed to work and was upgraded (probably about time 
anyway).
Most software reinstalled without any problems - registered stuff 
required re-entry of registration codes, which I keep anyway in my old 
email file.
Some software which failed 'native' would run on the Windows XP 'virtual 
machine' which Windows 7 ultimate can run if you have good enough 
hardware. This is so amazing it just has to be seen! It may be 
configured to run the software in a normal desktop window for complete 
transparency.

Upgrading from XP (32 bit) to 7 (64 bit) gave a vast performance 
increase. I would put some of it down to Windows 7 being a far more 
sophisticated OS than XP, but also to the 64 bit hardware being used to 
the full (especially being able to utilise more than 3.5G of memory.

If you have loads of desktop icons laid out on the screen, make sure you 
take a screenshot first and print it out as a reference! If you forget 
where things should point to you can get hold of the old desktop icons 
from the 'Documents and Settings' files which are preserved in the upgrade.

Good luck!

Michael Ben-Gershon
mybg at netvision.net.il