Upgrading to Windows 7 and drivers

[Cindy]

I have a machine with Vista. I purchased a Windows 7 OEM disk, advertised as NEW. I am fairly certain this is a good disk and there won't be problems with it and I have already had extensive discussion on this matter elsewhere. Someone else was working with me on this but I haven't heard an answer back for 5 days so I must move forward.

Originally I was going to do an in-place upgrade. The more I researched and read the more I felt it would be to my advantage, in the end, to do a clean (custom) install.

What is done about drivers in this scenerio ... do they come included with the Windows DVD or do I have to find drivers for Windows 7?

There is one driver I know I need to install after installation of Windows 7 because the upgrade advisor made that known. But I don't know about the rest of the drivers.

I'm also totally confused about when to add the key. I wrote to the seller and was advised to activate by phone. Can anyone with some first-hand knowledge of this issue help me out?

 

[Fanyit]

I have a machine with Vista. I purchased a Windows 7 OEM disk, advertised as NEW. I am fairly certain this is a good disk and there won't be problems with it and I have already had extensive discussion on this matter elsewhere. Someone else was working with me on this but I haven't heard an answer back for 5 days so I must move forward.

Originally I was going to do an in-place upgrade. The more I researched and read the more I felt it would be to my advantage, in the end, to do a clean (custom) install.

What is done about drivers in this scenerio ... do they come included with the Windows DVD or do I have to find drivers for Windows 7?

There is one driver I know I need to install after installation of Windows 7 because the upgrade advisor made that known. But I don't know about the rest of the drivers.

I'm also totally confused about when to add the key. I wrote to the seller and was advised to activate by phone. Can anyone with some first-hand knowledge of this issue help me out?

What is the name of your motherboard name ... example "motherboard name pi332g" or if you use brand pc tell brend name example "brand name g333" and I will try to find and give you a drivers

 

[Cindy]

I have a Dell XPS 410. Is that what you meant by brand pc? I finally heard back from the first person I was working with last night and she stated not to worry about drivers, that most, or maybe all I would need would be on the install CD, other than the Intel Gigibit Network Connection driver suggested by upgrade advisor.

 

[Fanyit]

I have a Dell XPS 410. Is that what you meant by brand pc? I finally heard back from the first person I was working with last night and she stated not to worry about drivers, that most, or maybe all I would need would be on the install CD, other than the Intel Gigibit Network Connection driver suggested by upgrade advisor.

I think windows 7 will find all drivers and install when formatting(Install) is in progress .. Besides graphic which you must install it. Here you can find the graphics and other drivers.
For operating system choice Vista and 32 /64 bit..
Dont worry Vista and Windows 7 have тhe same drivers will work
i have a problem i cant send link for the Driver
Sorry, you were not able to save since the content contained a link

For this Forum, before you can create content with links, you must first meet the minimum requirements
i need to research Like on some post and other think. ..

 

[TrustMe]

What I do before a clean install is go to Device Manager and expand every entry in there to see the name of every piece of hardware on your computer. Now find "print screen" on your keyboard and hit that key. Now open up "Paint" and hit "Paste". A picture of the device manager should be there. Save the picture to a USB flash drive. Call it device manager 1. You will not be able to get all of your devices in one picture. You will have to go back to device manager scroll down to the last device that was in the first picture and hit print screen again on your keyboard. And repeat the process until you have pictures of all your devices.

You could also just take a picture with your cell phone camera or a regular camera and save them.

If Windows don't have drivers for your hardware it will just say "Unknown Devive" in Devive Manager. Then you can just look at the pictures and see what the device is and look for drivers.

 

[TrainableMan]

First, you never mentioned bit-size. Is your Vista 32 or 64 bit? And then is the W7 32 or 64 bit? If you are changing from 32bit to 64bit then most drivers are different plus a bit change REQUIRES a fresh install, there is no way to use the upgrade in place. It is a good idea to use Windows Easy Transfer to back up your settings and data to an external drive; it makes it easy to restore once you have W7 installed.


Windows will try to find drivers for you IF it can connect to the internet which means it is probably a good idea to download the network/LAN drivers from Dell so you have them on a disk in case W7 cannot find drivers to do that on the OEM disk.

NOTE: If the OEM license was ever installed on another computer then it is not legal for use on yours. The fact the seller recommended activating by phone is of somewhat a concern in these regards.

 

[Cindy]

I have Vista Home Premium 32-bit and I want to do a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit.

One of my major concerns about all this is whether this product key I have for this Win 7 OEM disk will be good. The seller has been real easy to get along with. She/he has been on e-bay for quite a number of years and has a good reputation. I emailed back and forth with her with several questions and she was always prompt to email me back and very helpful. After first ordering the disk I wrote and asked if I decided not to do this could I return it and she said "Sure." I can only go by what the description said and it said NEW! Why is it of concern because she recommended activating by phone?

I went to Dell and downloaded two network drivers for my machine with Vista OS. I will keep them on external HD. However, when I ran upgrade advisor, recommendation was to find the latest driver for this device, download and save it somewhere and install after Windows 7 is installed. I emailed Intel back and forth and the driver they had me download was Network Adapter Driver for Windows 7. Is this a network LAN driver for Win 7 that would replace those I have for Vista?

I see above that another poster said I would have to install a grpahics driver. I missed that. Is that so?

 

[TrainableMan]

An OEM license is tied to the piece of hardware it was sold with and legally is not supposed to be installed on a different device. Some sellers actually send along a dead DVDRom drive or hard drive from the original device thinking it makes it legal or at least makes it meet eBay policies. When this is registered online it could potentially detect that it was not meant for your machine. Even when you call they may ask if you replaced the motherboard (MOBO) or something.

The biggest concern: is this installed on another computer or even worse, is the seller selling this same license to others and it is going to be on 5, 10, or more machines. The way W7 works it contacts Microsoft every so often; if the same license is found on multiple computers then they all get flagged as not having a valid license and the background gets changed to black with a warning in the corner that it is "Not Genuine" and it starts taking longer & longer to boot up (Microsoft's way of getting you to pay them around $300 for a legitimate license directly from them). Of course this is bad but if you are lucky this happens in time for you to at least open a dispute against the seller but I have seen this take 4 months before the machine went "Not Genuine" and then it is too late to dispute it even if you paid by credit card.

So buying software on eBay is a crap shoot; I think I was 2 for 4 and won my money back in at least 1 of the 2 that went bad. Buying just a license (without software) is not even something I would consider because they are probably selling the same license to 10 or more people.

You might get lucky and have Microsoft activate it and it may never go "Not Genuine" but I'm pretty sure you aren't meeting the intent of the Microsoft OEM license agreement.

....
As for the drivers...

basic VGA is included on the W7 DVD and that should work for video most of the time but I'm sure there is always the occasional exception. Once W7 is installed, it is recommended you visit the video card manufacturers site if it came with or you added a separate video card (or from Dell's site if using built-in video on the MOBO)

Network Adapter Driver for Windows 7 is a LAN driver (it may even be the exact same driver you use in Vista). Most likely it is for a physical connection (a wire) rather than wi-fi (wireless) so if you connect wirelessly then you may need a different driver.

 

[Cindy]

["It is a good idea to use Windows Easy Transfer to back up your settings and data to an external drive; it makes it easy to restore once you have W7 installed."]

Would you be willing to explain this a bit more?
It looks to me like I'd have to have one of those cables and I assume that would hook up between my computer and my external?

 

[Cindy]

Thanks for this. I purchased this Win 7 dvd in good faith and I guess I have no option but to use it and hope for the best. I certainly can't afford $300 to buy it from Microsoft. Would it be better as far as activation if I did an in-place upgrade rather than a clean install?

I did a lot of researching and there were several places that said these OEM disks would definitely work and activate. I don't know what to do anymore and I am so frustrated right now that I could literally cry if I let myself. Thanks for the help you are giving me.

 

[TrainableMan]

You are over thinking it. Like I said, it probably will work. It comes down to do you believe the seller is acting in good faith and how legal you want to be.

And no, in place won't be any better for activation, go with the clean install.

Windows Easy Transfer creates a file with extension MIG that contains all your data as well as the settings for all the users you have set up. Depending how much data you have this could end up being quite huge. When they talk about a cable they would be referring to transferring that file from one computer to another. You would simply create the file on your external drive that is connected to your computer then format and install W7, then restore the data from the MIG file.

NOTE: If you store files in places other than the default libraries under C:\Users\ then be sure to use the advanced options of Windows Easy Transfer to verify it is going to back up all your data folders. Since your are formatting and doing a fresh install, if you miss it then it will be gone unless it is backed up somewhere.

 

[Cindy]

What I do before a clean install is go to Device Manager and expand every entry in there to see the name of every piece of hardware on your computer. Now find "print screen" on your keyboard and hit that key. Now open up "Paint" and hit "Paste". A picture of the device manager should be there. Save the picture to a USB flash drive. Call it device manager 1. You will not be able to get all of your devices in one picture. You will have to go back to device manager scroll down to the last device that was in the first picture and hit print screen again on your keyboard. And repeat the process until you have pictures of all your devices.

You could also just take a picture with your cell phone camera or a regular camera and save them.

If Windows don't have drivers for your hardware it will just say "Unknown Devive" in Devive Manager. Then you can just look at the pictures and see what the device is and look for drivers.

Thank you for this info. I have done this.

 

[Cindy]

You are over thinking it. Like I said, it probably will work. It comes down to do you believe the seller is acting in good faith and how legal you want to be.

And no, in place won't be any better for activation, go with the clean install.

Windows Easy Transfer creates a file with extension MIG that contains all your data as well as the settings for all the users you have set up. Depending how much data you have this could end up being quite huge. When they talk about a cable they would be referring to transferring that file from one computer to another. You would simply create the file on your external drive that is connected to your computer then format and install W7, then restore the data from the MIG file.

NOTE: If you store files in places other than the default libraries under C:\Users\ then be sure to use the advanced options of Windows Easy Transfer to verify it is going to back up all your data folders. Since your are formatting and doing a fresh install, if you miss it then it will be gone unless it is backed up somewhere.

I have been having so much trouble lately on this machine that I have decided I am going to do a fresh install of all my programs. Yes, a lot of work but hopefully I will have a better running machine when done. I have all my product/license keys for everything saved in a list on my external.

Would you answer another question for me? For this Windows 7 installation, what boot order does my BIOS have to be in? Right now I know that my Samsung HD is #1, followed by Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive and then USB Device. There are two more listed but have (not present) beside them.