Welcome back to IT Free training series for Windows 7, our free gift to you.
If you are all ready have a computer running Windows you may want to upgrade to Windows
7.
Upgrading allows you to keep all your existing settings and saves you having to reinstall
your applications.
If you perform a clean install of Windows 7, you will need to re-install your applications
and copy over your settings.
This is called a migration.
This is more time consuming then simply upgrading.
When you purchase a upgrade license you purchase the right to upgrade your operating system.
This can be done either by a clean install or upgrading an existing install.
When you perform a clean install, setup will ask for your previous key to ensure that you
are entitled to an upgrade.
If you want to perform an upgrade you need to meet a few perquisites.
Firstly you must be running Windows vista with service pack 1 or service pack 2.
If you are running Windows XP there is no upgrade path to Windows 7.
You will need to perform a migration or a work around is to upgrade to Windows Vista
first and then upgrade to Windows 7.
Also when upgrading you must upgrade to the same architecture.
A 32 bit version of Windows Vista can only be upgraded to a 32 bit version of Windows
7.
Also a 64 bit version of Windows Vista can only be upgraded to a 64 bit version of Windows
7.
Before you start the upgrade process you should check that your hardware and software is compatible
with Windows 7.
It is a good idea to check with the manufacture of each device and software product.
They may have released updates for Windows 7.
You can also run the upgrade advisor supplied by Microsoft.
This will identify any known software or hardware problems with the upgrade to Windows 7.
When upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows Vista, you must upgrade to an equivalent edition
or a greater edition.
The following upgrades are supported.
Most of the editions of Windows 7 have the an edition with the same name.
The exception to this is the Windows Vista Business edition.
The best match to this on Windows 7 is the Professional edition.
You will notice in some literature states that you can for example upgrade from Windows
Vista Premium to Windows 7 Professional, but in this table you will see that you cannot.
Once you are running Windows 7, you are free to upgrade to any editions of Windows 7 as
long as it has more features.
So I would suggest that if you purchase and upgrade, read very careful l what you can
upgrade to.
Maybe the upgrade allows you to upgrade to a certain edition of Windows 7, but does not
support an in place upgrade.
This essentially means you would have to perform a clean install.
Read careful what the upgrade and upgrade to and if it supports an in place upgrade.
Once you are running Windows 7 however, you are free to upgrade to any edition of Windows
7 as long as it has more features.
Later in the video I will have a look at how to do that, but first let's have a look at
how to upgrade a Windows Vista system to Windows 7.
Before starting the upgrade I am going to go to the Microsoft web site and download
the Windows 7 upgrade advisor.
The advisor is simple to install and can be installed on Windows XP, Windows Vista and
Windows 7 both on the 32 bit and 64 bit versions.
Simply run the setup program and accept all the prompts.
Later on I will look at upgrading between different editions of Windows 7.
If you are planning to do this, the upgrade advisor can be run on a Windows 7 computer
as well.
Once installed, I can run the upgrade advisor from the start menu.
Note on the welcome screen the message connect and turn on all of your devices.
If you have any USB devices like printers, scanner etc you should connect these up so
the upgrade advisor can see if there are any potential problems.
Remember that when you use the upgrade advisor, it can only alert you to problems it knows
about.
Still, that is better than nothing.
Once I press the button start check, the upgrade advisor will start checking my system for
problems.
The process does take a few minutes so I will skip forward to the end.
At the top you can see the upgrade advisor will tell you what editions of Windows 7 you
can upgrade to.
It also gives you a link giving you more information about the editions that you can upgrade to.
Notice also the upgrade advisor has highlighted there is only 1 gigabyte of RAM in the computer.
For best performance with 64 bit you should have 2 gigabytes.
This is not a show stopper in this case as you can run Windows 7 with 1 gigabyte of RAM,
however you should take note of the recommendation as upgrading a poorly spec system may result
in having a very sluggish computer after the upgrade.
Notice the next warning is telling me I need more free space.
Before I attempt an upgrade I am going to have to free up some space or install a bigger
hard disk.
The next message is an information message telling me that some features in Windows Vista
are not available in Windows 7.
There are other products available from Microsoft to replace these.
For example you can download Windows live mail to replace Microsoft mail which is no
longer included in Windows 7.
The next section shows devices and whether they are compatible or not.
These devices I know work with Windows 7.
If you have a device that appears in here, you should check with the manufacture of that
device to ensure they have a driver for Windows 7.
Down the bottom of the screen you can see a list of programs that the upgrade advisor
has checked.
Now that the system has been checked I can insert the Windows DVD into the system to
upgrade Windows vista to Windows 7.
Don't worry about the warning about limited hard disk space, I paused the video and freed
some up while you won't looking.
Remember that, when upgrading you must run the setup from the operating system you are
upgrading from.
You can't boot from the DVD.
If I insert the DVD, launch the setup and then start the upgrade all I need to do is
select install now.
Once the setup starts, you will notice that there is a different screen not included when
booting from the DVD, thumb drive or running the setup from the network.
The upgrade will allow you to download updates from Microsoft before starting the upgrade.
I would recommend selecting the option go online to get the latest upgrades for installation.
If you have a buggy driver it may cause your upgrade to fail.
Before your first successful login to Windows 7, you have the option to roll back to Windows
Vista, but it is best to apply the updates first to maximize the success of your upgrade.
Next I will need to accept the license and on the next screen I can select the option
upgrade.
Since I ran setup from the operating system that I want to upgrade from this option will
work.
On the next screen Windows will check the system for compatibility problems.
You can see that I get a message telling me that ultimate extras has been discontinued
in Windows 7.
Once I press next, Windows will start the upgrade process.
This does take a long time to complete so I will pause the video.
Once Windows has finished coping over the install files, programs and settings, it will
reboot and ask you for a license key.
I like to deselect the option automatically activate Windows when I'm online.
If this option is ticked Windows will attempt to automatically active itself with Microsoft
in 3 days.
Otherwise you need to perform this step manually however you have 30 days to perform this step.
If something goes wrong in the 30 days you can perform a reinstall with out plenty.
On the next screen you can decide how automatic updates will be installed.
In this case I will select the recommended settings.
On the next screen you need to set the date, time and time zone.
For security in Windows 7 to work correctly, particular if you are going to put Windows
7 into a domain, these settings need to be set correctly.
Finally I get to decide which firewall profile should be used for my network card.
This computer will be put into a domain so I will select the option work.
Once selected, Windows will finalized its settings before you are presented with a login
screen.
If you are happy with the upgrade login.
If you think something when wrong you have the option to roll back the upgrade, just
remember, once you login to Windows for the first time, you will not be able to roll back
the upgrade.
Using Windows 7 in place upgrade allows you to upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows Vista.
However you may not be able to upgrade directly to the edition of Windows 7 that you want.
Windows 7 has the ability to upgrade from one edition to anther as long as the edition
you are upgrading to has more features.
Using any time upgrade will allow you to upgrade to an edition of Windows 7 that you can't
upgrade directly to.
For example, you could upgrade from Windows Vista Home premium to Windows 7 professional
by first upgrading to Windows 7 home premium and then performing an any time upgrade to
Windows 7 professional.
This of course does mean that you have to purchase two upgrades.
One from Windows vista to Windows 7 and another from Windows 7 premium to Windows 7 professional.
Remember however, when upgrading between different editions of Windows 7, you can't change the
architecture of the operating system.
In other words, using anytime upgrade does not provide an upgrade path from Windows 7
32-bit to Windows 7 64 bit.
To perform that kind of upgrade you need to perform a clean install and then copy over
your settings.
To demonstrate how to use the Windows any time upgrade, I will now switch to a computer
running Windows 7 premium edition.
First of all, you need to run Windows anytime upgrade from the start menu.
From the first screen of the wizard you get the option to enter in an upgrade key if you
have one.
If you do not have a key, you can select the option go online to choose the edition of
Windows 7 that's best for you.
At the top of the screen, you can see that I am currently running Windows 7 home premium
edition.
This gives me the option to upgrade to the professional edition or the ultimate edition
using Windows any time upgrade.
If you want to know more about the edition you are upgrading to, you can select the tab
at the top.
These will give you more information about the professional edition and ultimate edition.
When you are ready, press the buy button and complete the payment wizard.
I won't go through the upgrade process, however it is a simple wizard and may only take 10
minutes to complete.
This completes upgrading to Windows 7.
In the next video I will look at installing Windows 7 from the network which is a good
choice when you have a lot of Windows 7 installs to perform.