can I upgrade my system from Xp to Win 7 ultimate?

On 12/13/2016 12:39 PM, Bill Ravioli wrote:
I have an older, XP system that I have been running for years. I
recently acquired a brand new CD that has Win 7 ultimate. I got it from
a friend and its still in the packaging as he never used it. Anyway,
I've been thinking of upgrading my system, but the thought of having to
manually reinstall everything has caused me to put off the upgrade so
far, plus my understanding is that, at least with the normal versions of
Win 7, I can't just do an upgrade from XP anyway... but I now understand
that Win 7 ultimate has something called XP mode that would allow me to
continue running the XP programs. If true, how would this be done?
Would I still have to reinstall everything? It would sure be nice to
just install '7 over top of everything else and then "insert" my XP OS
into Win 7.... sort of like a virtual machine. Could be dreaming, buy
maybe not.

Suggestions and commentary welcome!

Thank you!

Chef BRD

I upgraded my old Acer Veriton M460 reluctantly because TurboTax [and a
growing list of software] would no longer operate under WinXP. I
migrated programs successfully using LapLink's PC Mover. Slow but
avoided reinstallation. YRMV.

Bill Ravioli wrote:
I have an older, XP system that I have been running for years. I
recently acquired a brand new CD that has Win 7 ultimate. I got it from
a friend and its still in the packaging as he never used it. Anyway,
I've been thinking of upgrading my system, but the thought of having to
manually reinstall everything has caused me to put off the upgrade so
far, plus my understanding is that, at least with the normal versions of
Win 7, I can't just do an upgrade from XP anyway... but I now understand
that Win 7 ultimate has something called XP mode that would allow me to
continue running the XP programs. If true, how would this be done?
Would I still have to reinstall everything? It would sure be nice to
just install '7 over top of everything else and then "insert" my XP OS
into Win 7.... sort of like a virtual machine. Could be dreaming, buy
maybe not.

Suggestions and commentary welcome!

Thank you!

Chef BRD

WinXP Mode is a 500MB download, which runs as a virtual machine
(VM) in Windows Virtual PC. How it differs from regular virtual machines,
is it has the option of using Terminal Services for display. The files
are stored in a VHD file. If you ever need to access a file
inside the VHD, a copy of 7ZIP will get you there (amongst
a raft of other methods).

The WinXP Mode machine would behave as a new OS installation. You would
have to re-install your programs.

If you run it without Terminal Services, then it would
present an entire WinXP desktop window. Say a 1024x768 or
1152x864 window that sits within your Win7 desktop.

If you are using it the Terminal Services way, you install
a program in WinXP Mode, and just the program window appears on
the Win7 screen. So to make a pretend example, if you
installed Notepad in WinXP Mode and then ran it, the resulting
Notepad window would be mostly indistinguishable from
the Win7 one running native. The Win7 Notepad would
use Win7 decorations. I don't know if the border
surrounding a Terminal Services hosted window uses
the host borders or not.

In a lot of ways, it's just like MacOS running as
a VM on MacOSX. That supported rootless window display
(like Terminal Services), but the difference there,
is the window decorations were MacOS. So if you ran
BBEdit in MacOS VM, it had the window trimmings of MacOS
rather than MacOSX. That "hint" told you when you were
running a program, where it was hosted. I liked
that feature. The older programs had the "crusty"
trim, so you knew they were in MacOS VM.

Since the WinXP Mode ecosystem is x86-on-x86, the VM
runs at ~90% of native speed. So there is no speed difference
of note.

Windows Virtual PC only supports one CPU core, so if
you had a six core machine and wanted to do movie rendering
in a video editor, you'd want to run that native. If you
moved your movie editor to the WinXP VM, then only
one core would be available. There are other virtual
machine products (VirtualBox) that have perfected
multi-core operation. Microsoft Hyper-V probably does
that too. But the VPC2007 and Windows Virtual PC were
only single-core hosting softwares. Windows Virtual PC
in Windows 7, is effectively VPC2007 with a new
(subdued) GUI on top of it.

I have the capability here to run WinXP Mode, in my
copy of Win7 Pro. And I've never bothered.

It would be just as easy to dual boot, if you
have both OSes.

*******

If you wanted to try migrating programs, in theory
you could do WinXP -- Vista -- Win7, and the
migration logic in the installer would drag the
programs forward. If WinXP was 32 bit, the Vista
and Win7 would need to be 32 bit as well. Not
really a big deal, unless you rent Adobe software
(which is all 64-bit now).

This picture shows the "diagonal line" traditional
upgrade support.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/conten...73/image_3.png

Win10 was a departure from the diagram, in that Win10
supported migration from Win7 SP1 or Win8.1. But most
other tables only "support the previous OS".

You would go WinXP Pro x32 to Vista Business x32
to Win7 Ultimate x32. And that would keep your
programs, or at least, some of them. You'd probably
turn off the AV before trying that, remove the
AV, and use the AV cleaner (a separate download).

But dual booting is just so much easier. If you
install the more modern OS second, then it takes
care of ensuring the boot management works for you.
Then you would have TurboTax in Win7, everything
else in WinXP, and you'd boot Win7 at tax time.

Paul

On 12/15/2016 05:08 PM, Paul wrote:
Bill Ravioli wrote:
I have an older, XP system that I have been running for years. I
recently acquired a brand new CD that has Win 7 ultimate. I got it
from a friend and its still in the packaging as he never used it.
Anyway, I've been thinking of upgrading my system, but the thought of
having to manually reinstall everything has caused me to put off the
upgrade so far, plus my understanding is that, at least with the
normal versions of Win 7, I can't just do an upgrade from XP anyway...
but I now understand that Win 7 ultimate has something called XP mode
that would allow me to continue running the XP programs. If true, how
would this be done? Would I still have to reinstall everything? It
would sure be nice to just install '7 over top of everything else and
then "insert" my XP OS into Win 7.... sort of like a virtual machine.
Could be dreaming, buy maybe not.

Suggestions and commentary welcome!

Thank you!

Chef BRD

WinXP Mode is a 500MB download, which runs as a virtual machine
(VM) in Windows Virtual PC. How it differs from regular virtual machines,
is it has the option of using Terminal Services for display. The files
are stored in a VHD file. If you ever need to access a file
inside the VHD, a copy of 7ZIP will get you there (amongst
a raft of other methods).

The WinXP Mode machine would behave as a new OS installation. You would
have to re-install your programs.

If you run it without Terminal Services, then it would
present an entire WinXP desktop window. Say a 1024x768 or
1152x864 window that sits within your Win7 desktop.

If you are using it the Terminal Services way, you install
a program in WinXP Mode, and just the program window appears on
the Win7 screen. So to make a pretend example, if you
installed Notepad in WinXP Mode and then ran it, the resulting
Notepad window would be mostly indistinguishable from
the Win7 one running native. The Win7 Notepad would
use Win7 decorations. I don't know if the border
surrounding a Terminal Services hosted window uses
the host borders or not.

In a lot of ways, it's just like MacOS running as
a VM on MacOSX. That supported rootless window display
(like Terminal Services), but the difference there,
is the window decorations were MacOS. So if you ran
BBEdit in MacOS VM, it had the window trimmings of MacOS
rather than MacOSX. That "hint" told you when you were
running a program, where it was hosted. I liked
that feature. The older programs had the "crusty"
trim, so you knew they were in MacOS VM.

Since the WinXP Mode ecosystem is x86-on-x86, the VM
runs at ~90% of native speed. So there is no speed difference
of note.

Windows Virtual PC only supports one CPU core, so if
you had a six core machine and wanted to do movie rendering
in a video editor, you'd want to run that native. If you
moved your movie editor to the WinXP VM, then only
one core would be available. There are other virtual
machine products (VirtualBox) that have perfected
multi-core operation. Microsoft Hyper-V probably does
that too. But the VPC2007 and Windows Virtual PC were
only single-core hosting softwares. Windows Virtual PC
in Windows 7, is effectively VPC2007 with a new
(subdued) GUI on top of it.

I have the capability here to run WinXP Mode, in my
copy of Win7 Pro. And I've never bothered.

It would be just as easy to dual boot, if you
have both OSes.

*******

If you wanted to try migrating programs, in theory
you could do WinXP -- Vista -- Win7, and the
migration logic in the installer would drag the
programs forward. If WinXP was 32 bit, the Vista
and Win7 would need to be 32 bit as well. Not
really a big deal, unless you rent Adobe software
(which is all 64-bit now).

This picture shows the "diagonal line" traditional
upgrade support.

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/conten...73/image_3.png


Win10 was a departure from the diagram, in that Win10
supported migration from Win7 SP1 or Win8.1. But most
other tables only "support the previous OS".

You would go WinXP Pro x32 to Vista Business x32
to Win7 Ultimate x32. And that would keep your
programs, or at least, some of them. You'd probably
turn off the AV before trying that, remove the
AV, and use the AV cleaner (a separate download).

But dual booting is just so much easier. If you
install the more modern OS second, then it takes
care of ensuring the boot management works for you.
Then you would have TurboTax in Win7, everything
else in WinXP, and you'd boot Win7 at tax time.

Paul

I think the dual boot option may be the answer. I already have Win 7
set up on a small HD just for test purposes and I can select either OS
at start up. One question though before I consider taking the full
plunge: I thought I read somewhere that I can considerably speed up the
booting process by using an SSD boot drive. Since one of the reasons
I've avoided dual booting is because it takes what seems like forever
for XP start up to complete, the thought has occurred to maybe try the
"boot drive" approach, but I know next to nothing about it.

Bill Ravioli wrote:


I think the dual boot option may be the answer. I already have Win 7
set up on a small HD just for test purposes and I can select either OS
at start up. One question though before I consider taking the full
plunge: I thought I read somewhere that I can considerably speed up the
booting process by using an SSD boot drive. Since one of the reasons
I've avoided dual booting is because it takes what seems like forever
for XP start up to complete, the thought has occurred to maybe try the
"boot drive" approach, but I know next to nothing about it.

I don't find WinXP takes that long here.

If you move the WinXP over to the SSD, you should
"align" it. That means not using MSDOS divisible-by-63
numbers. Macrium Reflect Free has a menu for changing
the alignment during clone or restore.

(See the tenth frame in this slide deck for an "Alignment" option...)

https://s9.postimg.org/6mko7k7m5/Macrium_Restore_CD.gif

The second thing WinXP lacks, is support for TRIM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_(computing)

It looks like Win8 is the first OS to support "Re-TRIM".
You could use that capability to process the WinXP
partition occasionally. The ACHI and IDE drivers on Win7 would
support TRIM commands. But the "Re-TRIM" function
would be handy for telling the SSD which parts
of WinXP partition are not in usage.

https://www.eightforums.com/attachme...ws-8-a-ssd.jpg

Some SSDs come with a toolbox, including a function
that does the equivalent of TRIM.

While WinXP is running, there are some other manual
optimizations, such as disabling the "Last Accessed"
stamping of files. At one time, there was a five
page article on all the things you could do to
improve OSes like WinXP on an SSD. So you will
be able to find other ideas out there. Some of the
individuals involved are fanatics, and some of their
proposals are more work than they are worth.

I own one SSD here, and it stays mostly in the cardboard box.
Yes, it's fast. But I guess in some ways, I've been
treating it as "a really large USB flash stick" :-)
I don't trust it all that much.

Paul

On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:59:59 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , dave
writes:
[]
For this and any other major change you need to get an image of the
existing system so you can undo everything if things don't work out.
Problem is I'm not sure if Macrium free version will work in xp and I
don't know of any others that will do the job.

I have used Macrium 5 to both image and restore XP. That's booting from
the Macrium CD, so I'd have _thought_ it's independent of the OS you're
imaging anyway - I certainly feel happier doing it, rather than trying
to do the image from inside a running Windows; however, I think Macrium
(5, anyway - and I doubt 6 is any different) _can_ be called from inside
a running XP. I can't think of any reason to do so, though, unless
you're blind and need the speech/Braille interface to be running.

Macrium 6 executed from within windows offers more options than the
standalone. Differential backup being the main advantage.
I regularly image from within windows, never had a problem. In fact I
recently restored my last windows 7 image made before upgrading to
windows 10. I gave up on 10. My system is multi-boot and I rarely boot
windows except for backing up. It used to be I needed it for TaxAct, but
the 2017 version is web based so I will have even less reason to use
windows. My preferred Linux is Mint xfce.

dave wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:59:59 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

In message , dave
writes:
[]
For this and any other major change you need to get an image of the
existing system so you can undo everything if things don't work out.
Problem is I'm not sure if Macrium free version will work in xp and I
don't know of any others that will do the job.
I have used Macrium 5 to both image and restore XP. That's booting from
the Macrium CD, so I'd have _thought_ it's independent of the OS you're
imaging anyway - I certainly feel happier doing it, rather than trying
to do the image from inside a running Windows; however, I think Macrium
(5, anyway - and I doubt 6 is any different) _can_ be called from inside
a running XP. I can't think of any reason to do so, though, unless
you're blind and need the speech/Braille interface to be running.

Macrium 6 executed from within windows offers more options than the
standalone.

Except in cases where the function on the CD is
"different" than the Windows version. I wouldn't
give up on the CD entirely - there may be situations
you would still want to try it.

Paul

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:11:00 -0500, Paul wrote:

I own one SSD here, and it stays mostly in the cardboard box.
Yes, it's fast. But I guess in some ways, I've been
treating it as "a really large USB flash stick" :-)
I don't trust it all that much.

I would suggest taking it out and using it...for something. Use it
regularly, even if it's for non-critical tasks. In fairly short order,
you'll either learn to trust it, or you'll learn that it can't be
trusted. Either is better than Schrodinger's cat, where it's in the box
and it's both trustworthy and untrustworthy at the same time. OK, I made
up that last part.

I have two laptops and a desktop running on SSDs here, going on about
12-15 months now. No issues on any of them so far. Having said that, all
three should crash sometime later today.

--

Char Jackson

On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 17:55:45 -0500, Bill Ravioli
wrote:

I think the dual boot option may be the answer. I already have Win 7
set up on a small HD just for test purposes and I can select either OS
at start up. One question though before I consider taking the full
plunge: I thought I read somewhere that I can considerably speed up the
booting process by using an SSD boot drive. Since one of the reasons
I've avoided dual booting is because it takes what seems like forever
for XP start up to complete, the thought has occurred to maybe try the
"boot drive" approach, but I know next to nothing about it.

I see that you and Paul discussed the VM approach, and now the dual boot
approach. If boot times are a deciding factor, you might be better off
with the VM approach.

I use VMware Workstation, but other solutions might work the same. With
VMware, I boot a system and use it, then I simply pause it. The next
time I need it, I resume it and it's ready to use in 3-5 seconds, just
as I left it last time. Obviously, if I need to reboot it, that's
available as well, but for the most part I use the pause/resume
capabilities to get really quick access to different machines. It works
extremely well.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:11:00 -0500, Paul wrote:

I own one SSD here, and it stays mostly in the cardboard box.
Yes, it's fast. But I guess in some ways, I've been
treating it as "a really large USB flash stick" :-)
I don't trust it all that much.

I would suggest taking it out and using it...for something. Use it
regularly, even if it's for non-critical tasks. In fairly short order,
you'll either learn to trust it, or you'll learn that it can't be
trusted. Either is better than Schrodinger's cat, where it's in the box
and it's both trustworthy and untrustworthy at the same time. OK, I made
up that last part.

I have two laptops and a desktop running on SSDs here, going on about
12-15 months now. No issues on any of them so far. Having said that, all
three should crash sometime later today.


Well, after my last CHKDSK run showing some
fragments detected, I can't say I'm all that
impressed. And it was being used on Win10, so
there's no excuse for the OS dis-mounting it
improperly and requiring the journal to clean
up the mess.

Yeah, it's trustworthy - it works exactly as
well as my collection of USB flash sticks.
They wobble occasionally too...

Paul

On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 11:42:56 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:11:00 -0500, Paul wrote:

I own one SSD here, and it stays mostly in the cardboard box.
Yes, it's fast. But I guess in some ways, I've been
treating it as "a really large USB flash stick" :-)
I don't trust it all that much.

I would suggest taking it out and using it...for something. Use it
regularly, even if it's for non-critical tasks. In fairly short order,
you'll either learn to trust it, or you'll learn that it can't be
trusted. Either is better than Schrodinger's cat, where it's in the box
and it's both trustworthy and untrustworthy at the same time. OK, I made
up that last part.

I have two laptops and a desktop running on SSDs here, going on about
12-15 months now. No issues on any of them so far. Having said that, all
three should crash sometime later today.


Well, after my last CHKDSK run showing some
fragments detected, I can't say I'm all that
impressed. And it was being used on Win10, so
there's no excuse for the OS dis-mounting it
improperly and requiring the journal to clean
up the mess.

Yeah, it's trustworthy - it works exactly as
well as my collection of USB flash sticks.
They wobble occasionally too...

Maybe it was an off-brand or just a bad sample.

Here are the results of two of my SSD-based systems:

***

Windows has checked the file system and found no problems.

500102143 KB total disk space.
178284092 KB in 154401 files.
142544 KB in 32417 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
380451 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
321295056 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
125025535 total allocation units on disk.
80323764 allocation units available on disk.


***

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

474093567 KB total disk space.
204654480 KB in 240336 files.
162720 KB in 47722 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
449467 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
268826900 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
118523391 total allocation units on disk.
67206725 allocation units available on disk.

***

Everything looks good to me.

--

Char Jackson

Char Jackson wrote:
On Fri, 16 Dec 2016 11:42:56 -0500, Paul wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:
On Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:11:00 -0500, Paul wrote:

I own one SSD here, and it stays mostly in the cardboard box.
Yes, it's fast. But I guess in some ways, I've been
treating it as "a really large USB flash stick" :-)
I don't trust it all that much.
I would suggest taking it out and using it...for something. Use it
regularly, even if it's for non-critical tasks. In fairly short order,
you'll either learn to trust it, or you'll learn that it can't be
trusted. Either is better than Schrodinger's cat, where it's in the box
and it's both trustworthy and untrustworthy at the same time. OK, I made
up that last part.

I have two laptops and a desktop running on SSDs here, going on about
12-15 months now. No issues on any of them so far. Having said that, all
three should crash sometime later today.

Well, after my last CHKDSK run showing some
fragments detected, I can't say I'm all that
impressed. And it was being used on Win10, so
there's no excuse for the OS dis-mounting it
improperly and requiring the journal to clean
up the mess.

Yeah, it's trustworthy - it works exactly as
well as my collection of USB flash sticks.
They wobble occasionally too...

Maybe it was an off-brand or just a bad sample.


snip

Samsung 850 Pro 256GB.

There's no sign it's having a particularly
hard time. The benchmarks look reasonable
(unlike the previous SSD I bought and returned).

My suspicion is it's a shutdown issue.

Remember that years ago, Windows had that problem.
Couldn't execute a flush() to save its soul.

And Linux does dirty shutdowns on purpose. I've
had several doing dumb stuff because the file system
was EXT4 with journal. And the file system would
be cleaned up on the next startup.

I don't think Windows is trying to do this on
purpose. And especially in the case of Win10,
where the power LED goes off, and the disk
activity LED continues to flash (kernel
hibernation, even when kernel hibernation
is disabled).

Paul

In message , dave
writes:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2016 18:59:59 +0000, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
to do the image from inside a running Windows; however, I think Macrium
(5, anyway - and I doubt 6 is any different) _can_ be called from inside
a running XP. I can't think of any reason to do so, though, unless
you're blind and need the speech/Braille interface to be running.

Macrium 6 executed from within windows offers more options than the
standalone. Differential backup being the main advantage.
I regularly image from within windows, never had a problem. In fact I

What does "Differential" mean in this context? All I can think it might
mean would be "incremental", i. e. it only backs up what has changed: if
that's what it does mean, then presumably to restore [from] such an
image, you need to restore from the last full image, then all the
incrementals made since ...

recently restored my last windows 7 image made before upgrading to

.... so how many did you need to use?

windows 10. I gave up on 10. My system is multi-boot and I rarely boot
windows except for backing up. It used to be I needed it for TaxAct, but
the 2017 version is web based so I will have even less reason to use
windows. My preferred Linux is Mint xfce.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Bother," said the Borg, "we assimilated a Pooh."

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

What does "Differential" mean in this context? All I can think it might
mean would be "incremental"

Wikipedia defines these for you. Incremental
and differential are compared in this article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_backup

Scroll to the 50% point on that web page, and
there are two nice diagrams there for you.

Paul

In message , Paul
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

What does "Differential" mean in this context? All I can think it
might mean would be "incremental"

Wikipedia defines these for you. Incremental
and differential are compared in this article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_backup

Scroll to the 50% point on that web page, and
there are two nice diagrams there for you.

Paul

I wouldn't be surprised if people misuse/mix the terms.

From what I understand from the wiki' page, Differential always stores
the changes since the last full, whereas incremental stores the changes
since the last incremental (which can be since the last full if it's the
first one after a full).

So both still need, in order to do a restore, the last full _and_ at
least one other (in the case of differential, it's only ever one other).
Right?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

.... "Peter and out." ... "Kevin and out." (Link episode)