Upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows 7 Release Candidate – PC 1 of 3

The computer is a Dell XPS 630i.  Nothing unusual, no special hardware.  This is my gaming box so it has a Nvidia GTX 285.  I had Windows 7 Release Candidate (7RC) on it since I bought it.

There wasn’t much to prep as I knew this day will come so I didn’t install much on it.  And over the past year or two, I have progressively move the important things (documents, music, family pictures, etc.) to the NAS.  There were a few software installed, nothing I couldn’t re-download so I just made a note.  I did exported the Internet Explorer favorites and cookies.

Opened the Windows 7 Professional (7Pro) box.  My first question was: 32 or 64bit?  I never did tried any of the 64bit Windows primarily because apps and software had been behind for years.  I never thought they’ve caught up yet.  More on that in a bit.  But 64 bit it is!

Pop the disc.  Error!  64bit installation cannot run off of my 32bit 7RC.  Okay.  Reboot from disc.

The installation is actually painless.  It took a little while but it configured everything, drives, network, even screen resolution.  I still can’t get over how long it took Microsoft to get Windows installation routine to self configure screen resolution.  Geesh.

Throughout the Windows 7 beta and RC, one of the sore point for me was antivirus.  Microsoft recently released Security Essentials.  I’ve used it for a few weeks.  Honestly I don’t know how well it worked as there is no track record.  But it is generally well-behaved, doesn’t bother me much.  And it didn’t slow down the machine even when I’m doing mass copy or play games.  So I’m ditching Norton, Trend Micro, etc.

Downloaded and installed MS Security Essentials.  It updated and was ready.  Sweet.

Adobe Reader.  No issue.

DVD43.  Oops.  This puppy does not run in 64 bit.  Web search revealed that this is a known issue and no fix in sight (some say not likely to have one).  Hmmm… Doesn’t Win7 have XP Mode or something?  Went to MS and found it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Downloaded and installed XP Mode, then Virtual PC, configured one.  It took quite a while but was interesting enough.  Redownloaded  class=”hiddenSpellError” pre=”Redownloaded “>DVD43, installed.  Pop a DVD in the drive.  Hmmm…. not working.  DVD43 running inside the Virtual PC cannot detect the DVD… at this point, it was 2 hours into the whole thing… bah, I was right, with the stuff I need to run, 64bit is just going to cause more problem.  Back to 32bit!

Pop the disc in, reboot, start from scratch. … some time later … I was back where I was.  This time DVD43 worked fine, as are Handbrake, PDF Creator, etc.  Ran Windows Update, 7 patches down and it is all set.

Aside from the 64 vs 32bit thing, it was relatively painless.