Windows 7 Upgrade Tips

So a Friend of mine emails me and says the following:

On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 3:34 PM:

Hey Rich,

I was in costco today and saw windows 7 home premium upgrade for $109. Then I saw something interesting. They had something called windows 7 home premium family for $129 that I didn't see online for download, and from what I can tell, it allows you to upgrade 3 PCs in your home. Given that I want to upgrade Jessica's laptop, as well, am I reading the packaging right and can I upgrade both computers for only $20 more?

I know you would prefer I switch to Mac OS Super Leopard Tiger XII, or whatever name Steve Jobs came up with to call it during a gay orgy, but since that isn't a possibilty, I would appreciate your advice.


Sent from my iPhone

This was my response:

Hey man, yes you can upgrade to Win 7 Home premium for $109 and yes they do have a family pack that allows you to install up to 3 computers. First a couple of questions, what OS is Jessica running? If she is still rocking Window XP upgrading to Windows 7 is basically a format and reinstall. So you'll have to back up all her data to an external drive and then re-install all her programs too no other way around this, so be prepared for at least a few hours dedicated to backing up, installing and restoring.

For you since you are already running Vista and going to the same version then your upgrade is easy you can just in an in place upgrade and retain all your docs and programs, however it is still highly recommended to back up all your data prior to doing so.

Another tip, once you are done upgrading you computer and Jess's computer, I'd highly recommend making a repair disk, it's a new feature built into Windows 7. Go to start/run and type "System Repair" then choose "Create a System Repair Disk", pop in a blank DVD and let Windows 7 do it's magic. This way if you ever get a system melt down or get a particularly nasty virus/malware you can always restore your system with this disk without having to reinstall everything.

Now see if you were using OSX then upgrades are a snap no matter what version you're upgrading from : ) and you don't lose your data or applications.

A follow up email:

Sounds like a snap to me!

Jessica is running Vista on her laptop, as well, so should have the sane upgradeability.

You said I should back up everything anyway, just in case. What is the best way to do that other than folder by folder, file by file copying to a USB drive or DVD?

A follow up Answer:

Awesome glad she is already running Vista makes things way easier, one other quick thing to check, is to make sure both of you are running the same version of Windows Vista. I think you guys are both running Win Vista Home Premium 32 bit edition, that way you'll be able to buy the one corresponding Win 7 Family Pack.

There are really only a few options to back up your data, the hard quick and dirty way, is to find all the files that you know you'll need or couldn't live without if your HD was pwned and then copy them to an external HD or CD/DVD. I would recommend backing up to an external HD, it's much faster and there is less headache in the burning process.

The more elegant & complete way, is to use a piece of software called Macrium Reflect, this is actually a free download here:

http://download.cnet.com/Macrium-Reflect-Free-Edition/3000-2242_4-10845728.html?tag=mncol

Don't worry it's free of spyware and malware it's from CNET's download.com, this software is cool because it takes a complete image of your old HD and you'll be able to restore it as if nothing has happened. The down side is that it will require a fairly large external HD to be able to image both yours and Jess's Drive. But this is the most complete and fail safe way of ensuring you don't lose any data just incase.

Otherwise you can go renegade and not back up anything and just upgrade and pray nothing goes wrong.

Mac OSX Snow Leopard Neat Trick

Most of you know by know that Mac OSX Snow Leopard has a new Quicktime X with a very cool new video capture feature, audio capture feature AND screen capture feature.

So now you can easily capture streaming video and audio for free using Quicktime X. However, by default you are only allowed to use an internal/external mic for audio capturing. You cannot capture audio from your mac itself (ie sound from a movie playing in your browser or music from a website). With the help of a free plugin, Soundflower, for Snow Leopard, we can in turn use Quicktime Player’s screen recording abilities as a very free and easy way to capture web video and audio. Props to http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/4587/snow-leoard-use-quicktime-player-to-capture-web-video-and-audio/ for the how to:

Requirements:

- Mac running Snow Leopard

- Snowflower add-on (download here )

1. Download and install the Snowflower add-on. The actual download link is a google code page. Once you install the add-on, i would recommend rebooting.

2. After rebooting, you will need to set your audio preferences to output to the new Soundflower audio outputs. Go to System Preferences > Sound > Output and select the Soundflower outputs

3. Now, launch Quicktime Player ( Applications > Quicktime Player or via Spotlight, command+spacebar)

Go to File >New Screen Recording

Then on the recording window, click the drop down arrow and choose the same Soundflower output we setup in our previous step. (ie Soundflower 2CH).

4. Finally, now go to your website and get the video ready to play. Hit the Record button in Quicktime Player and then start your movie/video in your browser. Once your done, stop the recording and voila! You have an instant video capture.

HOWEVER, remember to change your output audio back to your speakers once your done capturing. ( System Preferences > Sound > Output ) or else you may wonder where your audio went. :)

TIPS/TRICKS:

- REMEMBER, your mouse is captured when your recording, so try not to put it over the video your capturing.

- You can easily capture web audio by just doing a File > New Audio Recording and again choosing the Soundflower input as source.

- If you want, you can even import the captured video into iMovie and then crop to the video frame itself. Makes it a cleaner video.