Windows 7 Windows 7 Upgrade Compatibility

[TheDark]

I want to upgrade to Windows 7, but the Realtek Ethernet Network Card Diagnostic Tool (for Windows Vista, of course) is not compatible with it. The Upgrade Advisor says I have to uninstall it and then reinstall it after the upgrade. I have Vista Home Premium. Will that program be replaced when I upgrade to 7? Do I have to uninstall it? Thanks.

 

[webscaper]

The program will not be installed in Win 7. You will have to reinstall it after the upgrade. If it is not compatible it will not install.

Win 7 drivers will be installed for your nic. Go ahead and upgrade.

 

[TheDark]

Ok. Do I need to reinstall iTunes? Or the Catalyst Control Center? Or anything else, for that matter? Thanks. Link Removed due to 404 Error

 

[webscaper]

From my experience, if anything is incompatible it will not be installed in Win 7. But I only had 1 or 2 things that were not compatible. I had to reinstall after the upgrade because they were missing.

Edit
Yours is a bit more complicated. You may want to uninstall so as not to mess up the upgrade and be in an unknown state of repair.

 

[TheDark]

What do I have to uninstall, everything on that list? McAfee, iTunes, etc. should be compatible. Also, where can I download the Realtek, it was preinstalled on my computer.

 

[webscaper]

At this point I would suggest backing up you system and going ahead with the upgrade.

All too often we see people trying to upgrade with the result being a system hang with no way to recover or a blue screen which is difficult if not impossible to debug.

Of course if this happens you could do a clean install but you will lose everything on your system unless you have backup.

Microsoft would not recommend uninstalling incompatible software for no reason at all.

The call is yours.

Edit
Here is link to diagnostic tool: Link Removed.

 

[TheDark]

How do I backup all of my data?

 

[webscaper]

Type backup in the search area of the start menu. Then click it from the above menu. Then create a system image from the left side navigation pane.

Edit

It's best not to put the image on the same partition as the current operating system. Use an external hard drive or create another partition or use dvd.

 

[TheDark]

I don't have an external HDD, is there a way I can backup on my current HDD?

 

[Super Sarge]

NO !!! but you can backup to CD/DVD Discs. It is not possible to back up to the disc you are going to backup to

 

[Mitchell_A]

I would NOT recommend the upgrade path, backup your files and programs and do a clean install, reinstalling everything after the install..
Alternatively, instead of backing up, and can choose not to reformat during the "clean" install and windows will put your old installation in a folder named "windows.old" in your main drive where you can access everything from your previous installation, so you can just move all your personal files over. You will need to reinstall your programs, but hey at least now you have a list of them in your old directory

I hope this helps. Sorry if it's a bit confusing. The whole "windows.old" folder thing is kind of hard to explain.

 

[JessicaD]

Just another suggestion, though it may not be the first choice of yours -- have you considered performing a "custom" installation as opposed to the "upgrade?" You can do the "custom" install from the same upgrade disc of Windows 7. The only difference for the custom installation is that it is essentially a clean installation and therefore will require a reinstall of all your applications.

The reason why I normally recommend this method of moving to Windows 7 over an upgrade is that it is always best to perform a clean install whenever possible so as not to bring former code into a new environment. The custom installation will also back up all of your data for you and move it to a "windows.old" folder within your same hard drive / partition. It is always advisable to backup data yourself just as a precaution though.

 

[TheDark]

Approximately how much space would I need on the disk? Does a clean install cost extra, would I have to get the full version? Thanks.

 

[Mitchell_A]

A clean install with a fresh reformat takes about 8 GB before updates.
But if you don't reformat when you do the clean install, it will e that 8 GB plus however much space your previous installation took. But you can easily clean that up by running Disk Cleanup as an admin once you've got your files copied back over - thanks to Jessica for making sense of my original post.
You can perform a clean installation using an upgrade disc, here's how:
Link Removed due to 404 Error
It's a rather time consuming process, and if your not confortable working with the registry, you may want to purchase the "full" version of Windows 7. Of course you could always still upgrade, but there's a 95% chance you'll come across a lot of problems upon completion.