A lot of people are talking about Windows 7 upgrade. I’ve noticed most of them are complaining about how to installation it. Some are getting error messages, some say installations are on a loop and some are stuck on a certain point of installation.

So before you purchase Windows 7, you need to check on a few things: system requirements, upgrade path (for upgrade installation) and type of installation.

System Requirements

Recommended

Minimum

Maximum

If your system specifications are greater than these values, Windows 7 will only use up to the maximum value. So for the x86 architecture, even if the computer has 8GB of RAM, Windows 7 will only show 4GB of RAM available.

Upgrade Path

The upgrade path for Windows 7 starts at Windows Vista SP1 or later. The earlier versions of Windows are not supported for upgrade to Windows 7.

RIU = Repair in-place Upgrade               WAU = Windows Anytime Upgrade

So even if your computer has the recommended requirements but have the wrong disc, you still can’t perform the upgrade installation. Although there is a work around for this situation. For example, the machine has Windows Vista Business 32-bit and the upgrade disc is Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit. Since there is no upgrade path for this, a key less custom or clean installation can be done, then after will be a RIU.

Installation Method

There are 5 different types of installation; clean, custom, repair in-place, parallel and upgrade. Clean install is where a hard drive is reformatted before installation. Custom install on the other hand is similar to clean install, only the HD is not reformatted at the same time Windows 7 will create a folder named Windows.old. This folder contains the previous operating system’s Windows folder, Program files folder and Documents and Settings folder (for Windows XP). Repair in-place, also called “dirty install”, is just repairing the current operating system with the same Windows edition. Parallel install is where one OS is installed on the 1st partition and another OS is installed on the 2nd partition. An example is, Windows XP is installed in C: drive while installing Windows 7 in D: drive. This is good for testing different IE browsers in one computer. The last type of installation is upgrade. Upgrade install is performed while the previous OS is booted. For instance. Windows Vista Home Premium is running while Windows 7 Home Premium installer is launched. Most users choose upgrade installation because it automatically transfer files, settings and programs from the old OS to the new one. Compared to clean installation, upgrade install has a greater chance of getting problems on the installation because not all programs on the previous operating system are compatible to Windows 7.

It is important to consider the type of installation to perform because this determines what type of Windows 7 installer to purchase. For example, a downloaded installer from Digital River cannot be used for clean installation because the the setup can only launch while the OS is running. So if ever a downloaded installer is to be used for a clean installation, a bootable DVD must be created first using the files that were downloaded. For some computers like netbooks, the only option they have is either a downloaded upgrade installer or boot from a USB flash drive.

To wrap things up, it is recommended to use Windows Upgrade Advisor to check if there are incompatible programs running on the OS before upgrading to Windows 7. But still, clean installation has lesser chances of getting errors compared to upgrade install.