9 replies to this topic

[Viper1]

Hello,

My pc is currently running Vista 32bit and I will be installing Win7 64bit when it is officially released in 2 days (OCT 22, 2009)...
I will be doing a clean install to start out fresh instead of just upgrading it on top of Vista... My question is... Can someone give me a step by step of what I have to do in order to keep all of my files and especially all of my software running as it is now... I have some of the software cd's but some of them I do not and would hate to lose them....

Thank You All In Advanced For Your Help

//Viper1

[AdvancedSetup]

A clean install pretty much includes (or should) formatting the drive. I prefer to even remove the partition and create a new one myself.

You need to backup ALL data that you want to keep and put back later onto an external hard drive.
Word, Excel, Videos, Pictures, Images, Music, Email, etc... make sure you run something like MSINFO32 and print it out for reference.
Print out custom setting information if it's important to you. Don't forget FULL Product Key registrations, etc - often those shown in a program are not the full install key so when re-installed it would not work, make sure you have the right one.

If the drivers for your make and model of PC are available from the MFG Website - get them now for Windows 7 and burn them to a CD/DVD just in case it does not automatically detect or install the network card then you'll still have the driver on CD.

BACKUPS should always be done and not just because you're doing an upgrade like this. Hardware failure can come at any time and without a backup then your just plain out of luck.


If you need any more specific details or information please let us know and I'm sure others will chime in.

[Viper1]

Thank you for the quick replay AdvancedSetup..

Does MSINFO32 give me those keys for some of the software that I have, or, is there any freeware that I can find that does that and gives me the correct keys?

Thanks Again

//Viper1

[AdvancedSetup]

List of programs that can search out program keys from a Windows system

• RockXP 4
  
• Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder v2.0.1
  
• Win Keyfinder 1.73 RC2
  
• Keyfinder Thing 3.1.6
  
• LicenseCrawler
  
• ProduKey v1.38
  
• Product Key Finder
  
• Product Key Finder PRO
  
• Product Key Finder v1.00
  
• MSKeyViewer Plus
  
• geProduct Key Finder
  
• Product Key Informer

[Defrag01]

I recomend downloading Belarc Advisor http://www.belarc.co...e_download.html

this will do an inventory on hardware and software with all of the installed keys for all of your software.

[hello2007]

Speaking of cleaning. Recently i gathered alot of system cleaning programs and it made me think. Is it bad using 2,3,4 different cleaning programs any given time. Im talking about the cleaning system tools that have defragment, file's cleaning, registry cleaning, system optimize etc. Or does it not matter

[exile360]

Registry cleaners can be very risky if you don't know exactly what you're doing and what the programs are deleting. As for temp file cleaners, not issue there unless there are settings you want to keep, but using more than one doesn't hurt. I use 2: Ccleaner and ATF Cleaner. System optimizers I don't really bother with, I do my own registry and system tweaks manually .

[noknojon]

hello2007, on Oct 23 2009, 08:29 PM, said:

Speaking of cleaning. Recently i gathered alot of system cleaning programs and it made me think. Is it bad using 2,3,4 different cleaning programs any given time. Im talking about the cleaning system tools that have defragment, file's cleaning, registry cleaning, system optimize etc. Or does it not matter

I run 2 extra defragmenters now as my inbuilt has had issues for about 1 year - One is a quick defrag - I use it every day - The other is Piriforms Defraggler which is now much more a beefed up unit -

[srtools1980y]

@AdvancedSetup:

Thanks for your," List of programs that can search out program keys from a Windows system". Though I know a few, your list is exhaustive.

My simple method: I maintain a file (office cardboard/plastic file) with printouts of key nos. of all the purchased programs & also the invoices of hardwares.

But I wonder why most are not doing it.

Because some soft. co's demand money for retrieving your keys from their database. Some co's like Cyberlink have My A/c feature where our keys are stored & one can login & get back the keys. I like this feature. But for logging in you should know the username & password. If the password is generated by the company, then you are in trouble again.

Then another point, if the OS gets corrupted, and if system does not boot u will be in deep trouble.

That's why I always insist to jot down the key no/s at least in a diary, if printing facility is not available.

@Defrag01: Welcome
Belarc Advisor is a pretty program, but at times the details of your system gets leaked out in the web.
I have stopped using it. Just my exp.

[hello2007]

srtools giveaway of the day had a not bad system info tool couple of days ago maybe you should of tried it out if thats what you were looking for