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: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.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment