Windows 7 'Clean?' install

[Trippy]

A colleague asked me to upgrade an old desktop box this week. As I'm about to embark on upgrading the OS's on my family's collection of kit at home, I thought it would be good practice.

 

Installed some new DVD drives and put the max amount of RAM in for him (Old box only 2gb but fine for wht he and his wife will use it for).

 

Existing install was XP home, so went for the supposedly clean install option via the custom install route. All went fine and the box now runs really well for an older P4 system but it's not the 'cleanest' of installs I have ever seen!

 

There are several old folders left over from the XP OS with drivers and other stuff that's no longer needed, and a massive windows.old folder which is useful if you forgot to back up your stuff, but takes up loads of disc space.

 

So I guess what I'm getting to is:

 

1 Is this the way W7 does a 'clean install' or did I miss something?

2 For a really good use of disc space, would it be better to format the drive and do a 'proper' clean install from scratch?

 

Any input gratefully recieved!

Trippy

[maynardvdm]

Hi

 

I would always, if possible, go with option 2. First format then install, then you know there will be no other stuff.

[Trippy]

Thanks, maynardvdm, I have always formatted and/or repartitioned discs when upgrading from earlier OS but (obviously wrongly!) assumed that a 'clean' install would be almost as good without the hassle. Should have known better..............

 

Trippy

[kevh]

Have just done the same here but from vista to 7 , and was surprised the ammount of files that remained (no programs) and not just the windows.old file as some of my software started working with all settings and passwords once i reloaded the programs ! (which was very nice but unexpected with a clean install)

 

Windows.old rescued my old emails which hadnt been backed up correctly.:confused:

 

All in all running pretty fine too :)

 

Cheers Kev :cool:

[Trippy]

Hi Kev

Yes, it's not much of a clean install as you say but not without some uses! I really want to start fresh with my systems (kids load so much rubbish) so will be formatting the drives per maynardvdm's advice.

 

Out of interest how did you backup your mail files? (the ones that you found empty that is). I'm using a mix of OL 2003 and 2007 and was just going to save the .pst files to my external HDD and re load them after the OS install; but if that's not going to work I need a plan B :)

 

Trippy

[kevh]

Hi Trippy

 

I was using Windows Live Mail on Vista , and was very easy to export just the folders without the messages inside . I would check to see if they are there if i had to do it again.

 

Only been with OL 2007 for a couple days now but love it , havent looked into the backing up yet much but as you say the .pst files should do it , maybe export them too , or save any really important ones on there own.

 

Does the .pst save contacts too ?

 

Cheers Kev

[Trippy]

Hi Kev

The outlook.pst files will contain everything but beware of the archive.pst. That will only have anything that you have set up to auto archive or have individually archived in it.

 

I'm going to run auto archive to archive EVERYTHING on each box's mail files to my external HDD and then just import what I want after the clean install.

 

Knowing me, though, I probably won't then do what I should do and that is delete the thousands of old messages that I'm keeping "just in case" :rolleyes:

 

Trippy

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, for my two pence worth, the odd mails I wish to keep, I get them out of the mail system altogether by doing a copy and paste into a word doc, I now have loads of pages of word docs, but saved to the external drive. I feel that is much safer for the important stuff.

Nev.