Hello Lim:

You have made a good decision to move to Win7 after the support dropped
from the previous XP. I used XP for years and really liked it. When I
first went to Win7 I hated it, probably because I was so use to XP and
after the install and setup Win7 looked so different that I felt totally
lost. But after playing around with Win7 I learned that you could
personalize it to look and act just about like XP and once I did that
and could move around in it again my confidence and tolerance for it
began to grow. Today, several years later I have grown to love Win7 and
you most likely will as well. Win7 64 is a strong robust operating
system which I appreciate greatly.

A couple recommendations if I may:

1. Before you install it prepair your hard drive with a newly created or
atleast a freshly formatted C drive or partition with nothing on it and
do a fresh install of Win7 and don't mess around with trying to do an
update install.

2. During the install Win7 setup will establish a new or seperate
partition in which the Win7 setup/install files are located on. Win7
uses this to restore your system files should they become corrupted. So
make certain you have plenty of free HD space avaliable before you install.

3. After the install, you will have the option to make a restore disk, I
highly recommend that you do that and tuck it away as an insurence policy.

4. There are many sites on the internet you can pickup good books on
using Win7 which have great value to people new to it. One is Win7 for
Dummies and another is Win7 the forgotten manual. Between these two you
will be feeling right at home with Win7 in no time.

5. Win7 is downward compatible and you will find that it will run most
of your previous XP programs. Most of mine ran OK. A few did not and
would not run so I had to upgrade the programs if I wanted to continue
to use them. That was not that big of issue. There is a subprogram in
Win7 that lets you try to run programs that will not run in Win7 in a
mode that mimics previous operating systems. I have tried to use that
several times but it never would run them so I rarely will bother with
that function any longer.

6. Some programs or devices you have that ran on XP will not run on Win7
without driver a driver update. You might want to check the Win7
compatibility section on your Win7 setup/install disk and read it before
you install so you will know what programs, cards, devices you have may
not work with Win7 without driver updates. This affords you the
opportunity to go to the mfg. driver support website and download the
needed drivers before you do the install. This could be an important
step. I did not know to do this before I installed Win7 and after the
install I found out that the network card in my computer, which was not
that old, would not work because its driver was for 32 bit while I
installed 64 bit Win7. Luckly I had an old backup modem computer that I
could use to hook up and get the drivers I needed because without the
network card working, needless to say, I could not connect to the
internet from the Win7 computer immediately after the install. You will
probabbly need to update several of your device drivers to work with
Win7 64.

7. After Win7 installs, before doing much of anything else, it would be
wise to connect with Windows update and let it update your new install
before you use it. Set aside several hours for this because you will
probably have well over 100 various security and system updates that it
will install.

8. Security Essentials is a great Microsoft virus/bug program that is
free but for some reason is not part of the Win7 install/setup so I
advise going to the Microsoft website after you do all the updates to
your new install and download a free copy of it and install it. After
installing Security Essentials you will need to run an update for it
seperately, it will prompt you to do so and you want to do that to get
the latest definition files on your computer. I can't stress how
important this is ... this free virus program from Microsoft has saved
me several times and I would not be without it.

9. Finally, after the install, the updates and reinstalling the programs
you use the best way to learn about Win7 is to use it. Don't be afraid
to experiment, push buttons and try out various menu options to see what
they do. Win7 is robust and can withstand most assults. But should you
find that something did screw up, you can use the restore to an earlier
time function to undo most of the things that go wrong.

Well all I can say is welcome to Win7 and have fun and have at it Lim..

73 - Larry


PCBUILD automatic digest system wrote:

>There is 1 message totaling 49 lines in this issue.
>
>Topics of the day:
>
>  1. New PC & Windows 7 64-bit
>
>                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Date:    Sun, 4 May 2014 14:45:01 +0800
>From:    Yoke Lim Chew <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: New PC & Windows 7 64-bit
>
>Hi
>
>I have been tolerably happy using Windows XP 32-bit for many years.
>
>Now it appears it's time to move on - in my case, to Windows 7 64-bit,
>which I had bought before Windows 8 came out. (That's how long ago I had
>intended to switch but didn't get round to doing it.)
>
>In XP, I had a dedicated partition for the swap file, not wanting the swap
>file to be on the C drive.
>
>Q1 for 7: Presumably 7 also needs space for the swap file. I have 8G RAM.
>Is it a good idea to use a dedicated partition for the swap file in 7? If
>so, how much space should I provide?
>
>I have many XP programs which I would like to use in 7. I can, of course,
>continue to run them on the XP PC, which I am retaining, but I believe that
>in 7 there is an option to install a component allowing XP programs to run
>in 7.
>
>Q2 for 7: Is it a good idea to install the XP component? If installed, can
>7 64-bit run XP 32-bit programs?
>
>Most, if not all, data and other user files on XP will be moved over to the
>7 PC.
>
>Q3 for 7: Can 7 64-bit programs still read files created on XP 32-bit
>programs - assuming 7 programs are backward compatible?
>
>Final general note: Any advice in general for things to consider or to look
>out for in the installation of 7 64-bit will be gratefully accepted and
>deeply appreciated.
>
>Thanks for any input.
>
>Lym.
>
>                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
>                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
>                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
>
>------------------------------
>
>End of PCBUILD Digest - 2 May 2014 to 4 May 2014 (#2014-20)
>***********************************************************
>
>
>

                          PCSOFT's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                        Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>