Upgrading to Windows 7 Advice

[DarkFather]

I have been using Win XP Pro since 2002, modding it and always have had it run well. I have had a SP3 Splitstream disk I have been using as well.

Now, I have decided to upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate 32/64, partly because the new Photoshop and Lightroom will not support XP fully. I have my copy of Win 7 ready to install.

My PC I build myself a few years ago. I have never used 64 bit so it will be a bit new to me. I do Photography and Photoshop graphics and design as well as a bit of gaming and music recording.

My motherboard is ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition (I don't use the wireless)

My CPU is AMD Athlon 64 5200+

A few questions.

1)There are no Chipset (Ethernet, etc) drivers for my motherboard for Win 7, only Vista and XP. I read on another forums it is OK to use the Vista or XP Chipset drivers with Windows 7. Is this correct?

2) Any advice on other things I may need to change on my PC after upgrading or before?

I will be adding a few more Gigs of more RAM since XP only supported 3.5GB and Win 7 goes far beyond that.

My motherboard Bios are all up to date so I do not foresee needing to flash them upgrading to Win 7.

Also, any advice on processes and such to disable or turn off in Win 7 for making it run better and less processes. I hate a bunch of processes running and always kept it below 30 in XP.

[CliveM]

You need to have 64bit drivers for your hardware if you intend installing W7 64bit

[Iantech]

Hmmm, to be straight up and honest with you, in my personal opinion I dont know if your current combination will work all that great on Win 7 64bit. While I'm sure it will work, I question what processing power and resources will be left over to run your other programmes such as photoshop. I'm thinking because of the tech, its going to be pretty slow, it is only a dual core 2.7gig cpu, your motherboard will only support a max of 8gig DDR800 (that in itself is old and slow) which is probably the minimum I would suggest to do what you want it to do.

What I would be doing in your situation is buying a new hard drive, take your current XP HDD out and setting up a fresh Win 7 64bit install on the new HDD and see how it all performs. If it runs not to your expectations, then you can put your XP HDD back in and carry on (with all your current config) instead of being left with a struggling Win 7 which will frustrate you. I would also use the install to test the Vista 64bit drivers.

I would be interested in hearing how it goes, but I think you should cover yourself, paying $150 or whatever on a HDD to see if it works is going to be cheaper that buying more memory for it to begin with.

Just my opinion.

[pctek]

My motherboard is ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition

1)There are no Chipset (Ethernet, etc) drivers for my motherboard for Win 7, only Vista and XP. I read on another forums it is OK to use the Vista or XP Chipset drivers with Windows 7. Is this correct?

2) Any advice on other things I may need to change on my PC after upgrading or before?

I will be adding a few more Gigs of more RAM since XP only supported 3.5GB and Win 7 goes far beyond that.

Also, any advice on processes and such to disable or turn off in Win 7 for making it run better and less processes. I hate a bunch of processes running and always kept it below 30 in XP.

Vista drivers work with it sometimes. Some do, some don't. It would still need to be 64bit drivers otherwise no.

The O/S isn't the point with the 4GB, it's the 32bit versus 64bit. You need 64bit for 4GB or more.

Go to Black Vipers site and get the Win7 services list - stick with the medium list, not the extreme one.
Then of course, the usual msconfig, take stuff out of startup that you don't need there.

[Speedy Gonzales]

Win7 may install nic drivers. Well it did for this. Even tho, there are nic drivers for this, I'm still using the Win7 drivers. (for the nic and sound - ASUS audio drivers are crap in Win7 - The sound was too low).

AMD maybe different. Since the ethernet drivers are / or can be part of the chipset drivers.

And yup, I dont think the chipset drivers on this are 64 bit. Just as long as theyre for whatever chipset the mobo has, it'll be fine

For AMD, theyre probably Nvidia chipset drivers. Once you install Win7, kill UAC. Its annoying. It can stop some programs from updating (access denied errors). I usually disable windows search as well

Yup get the Vista 64 bit drivers from here

[DarkFather]

Vista drivers work with it sometimes. Some do, some don't. It would still need to be 64bit drivers otherwise no.

The O/S isn't the point with the 4GB, it's the 32bit versus 64bit. You need 64bit for 4GB or more.

Go to Black Vipers site and get the Win7 services list - stick with the medium list, not the extreme one.
Then of course, the usual msconfig, take stuff out of startup that you don't need there.

I will only need 64 bit if I choose the 64 bit, which I may not do. I'll have 7 GB of RAM in with Win 7.

Thank you for the site info.

Hmmm, to be straight up and honest with you, in my personal opinion I dont know if your current combination will work all that great on Win 7 64bit. While I'm sure it will work, I question what processing power and resources will be left over to run your other programmes such as photoshop. I'm thinking because of the tech, its going to be pretty slow, it is only a dual core 2.7gig cpu, your motherboard will only support a max of 8gig DDR800 (that in itself is old and slow) which is probably the minimum I would suggest to do what you want it to do.

What I would be doing in your situation is buying a new hard drive, take your current XP HDD out and setting up a fresh Win 7 64bit install on the new HDD and see how it all performs. If it runs not to your expectations, then you can put your XP HDD back in and carry on (with all your current config) instead of being left with a struggling Win 7 which will frustrate you. I would also use the install to test the Vista 64bit drivers.

I would be interested in hearing how it goes, but I think you should cover yourself, paying $150 or whatever on a HDD to see if it works is going to be cheaper that buying more memory for it to begin with.

Just my opinion.

I may just go 32 bit then. I'll have 7 GB of RAM in once Win 7 is installed. I have a few other RAM sticks I never was able to use since XP only read 3.5.

My PC runs Star Wars The Old Republic in 1080 just fine. But of course, that is with Win XP Pro SP3 32bit. My PC runs VERY good for being 4 yrs old actually. It was top notch then.

I have other hard drives so I may take your heed and try installing Win 7 on one of them to test it out. Thank you.

Win7 may install nic drivers. Well it did for this. Even tho, there are nic drivers for this, I'm still using the Win7 drivers. (for the nic and sound - ASUS audio drivers are crap in Win7 - The sound was too low).

AMD maybe different. Since the ethernet drivers are / or can be part of the chipset drivers.

And yup, I dont think the chipset drivers on this are 64 bit. Just as long as theyre for whatever chipset the mobo has, it'll be fine

For AMD, theyre probably Nvidia chipset drivers. Once you install Win7, kill UAC. Its annoying. It can stop some programs from updating (access denied errors). I usually disable windows search as well

I dont install the MB sound, only the sound card drivers. Onboard sound is never installed or ever used by me.

I planned on disabling search anyway.

There are 32 and 64 bit Chipset drivers, just not for Win 7. There are XP and Vista Chipset drivers in both 32 and 64 bit. I read another guy who just used the XP Chipset drivers and ran fine on Win 7.

Thanx for the UAC advice.

PS: Your the guy who helped me Slipstream the XP disk I have)

[Speedy Gonzales]

Get the 64 bit vista chipset drivers, theyre on the site I posted. The Vista 64 bit drivers should be fine in Win7 x64

[wainuitech]

I may just go 32 bit then. I'll have 7 GB of RAM in once Win 7 is installed. I have a few other RAM sticks I never was able to use since XP only read 3.5.

You wont be able to use all 7GB, as a W7 32bit OS will still only see the same amount of RAM as per the XP.

To use all the RAM you have to use a 64Bit OS.

[dugimodo]

UAC in 7 is fine, I never have any issues with it like I did with Vista(drove me batty) Iantechs suggestion of trialling it is a good one, if you have space on a drive somewhere you could just save an image of your current setup as an alternative to getting a new drive. I wouldn't activate windows right away either in case it doesn't work as expected you don't want to tie it to the old hardware.

I'd install it first and worry about drivers second, windows has a lot of them by default and only by trying will you find out what is missing.
I also reccomend sitting down in front of the current setup and going through all your programs and folders and making sure you have installers for anything you want to keep and export e-mail contacts, IE favourites, etc. A lot of time I get people asking me how to get this stuff after instaling windows.

I think your hardware should run windows 7 ok personally, a lot of low specced laptops manage just fine. Bear in mind though if you start spending money on RAM etc for an old platform you can easily get close to the price of cheap upgrade to modern hardware. (MB/CPU/RAM combos can be had starting at approx $300).

[Nomad]

I have a Quad 2.33Ghz that is about 3yrs old I think from when bought. I used some of the Adobe s/w works fine for me. I don't batch process photographs though .. I have 4GB RAM.

Do you have a spare HDD? If so try it on that, you may find that Win7 has a lot of the drivers itself.

If you don't I would make a image file first with whatever software and pop on a HDD partition or pref a external HD just in case ...