Tips for Re-installing Windows 7

Unregistered.

Hi all.

Looking for some tips and tricks that you guys do before re-installing Windows.
Aside from the obvious, backing up data etc. What do you guys do to make starting over as seamless as possible?
For example, I have taken a screen shot of the services i have disabled and made a list of the programs I will definitely not want to forget to install. As well as drivers for what I use most frequently.

Edit: On the drivers, I have only the drivers that have sprung to mind from looking around, is there a way to get a definitive list of installed drivers?

Anything else?

VenomIreland

I'd like to know this also, I'm considering doing a re-install soon (either this weekend or after I build my new PC).

tman

Back up your bookmarks!!! I always fupping forget to do that:o

I have my documents, downloads, music, video and pictures folders spread across different partitions and drives, so whenever I have to reinstall Windows, I just wipe the C: drive without any worries and install away, then when that's all done I just change the target for each of these in my home folder.

Oh yeah, and download the latest drivers beforehand, kind of silly using drivers from a year ago or whatever when some might have been released a few days ago!

Slipstream SP1 if you can be bothered? Or at least download the offline installer so that you can run that after installation without having to wait forever for windows update

Unregistered.

tman wrote: »

Back up your bookmarks!!! I always fupping forget to do that:o

Here's a tip for everybody: On my Storage partition (D:\), I have a folder for shared profiles, eg, firefox, thunderbird, pidgin. All my apps that i use on linux and Windows so that settings, history, tabs, bookmarks and everything else is consistent when switching from one to the other. It's also a handy way to have them backed up!

Monotype

Yeah, it's a good idea to have a trawl through the folders to see if there's anything you missed. If you're paranoid, back up the old install and delete it bit by bit.

Keep your windows drive as clean as possible, in my opinion, if you're involved in hardware upgrades and are likely to reinstall often. It's too much of a pain to be sorting through files time and time again.

Windows 7 is pretty good with drivers, you might not need that many.
www.ninite.com installs many applications automatically and is very handy.
Don't forget directx.

psycjay

If you have the space on an external drive then I suggest making a full disk image of windows just in case you forget something.

If you use firefox it has a built-in sync feature now which works great at saving all your passwords, bookmarks, even history if you want. I did this recently for my gf when I installed w7 over vista and it worked great.

For the drivers you can go into device manager, and take screen shots of the drivers and versions. This is a pain but it's a good idea just in case you have a compatibility issue with a driver when you reinstall. This is very important if you are installing a 64 bit version of windows over a 32 bit version (if your system supports it), Particularly for things like webcam, card readers etc.

If you use outlook then back-up that too.

Unregistered.

Just came across RTLite. Which allows you to create a cut-down installation iso by taking out the windows features you don't want. Might give that a try. Readin up on it now while I'm waiting for Windows 7 SP1 iso to download.

More information here: http://lifehacker.com/5793427/how-to-create-a-custom-windows-installation-dvd-or-usb-install

Moon54

I use MozBackup to backup my Firefox bookmarks,addons,cookies, saved passwords etc.
Great little program, it means I'm back online on a new install in about a minute.

I also de-authorise my computer in iTunes before a re-install. Don't know if it matters, I do it just in case.

Also, it's a good idea to have the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 32/64 bit downloaded and ready to install.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=c3202ce6-4056-4059-8a1b-3a9b77cdfdda&displaylang=en

Trevor451

For some reason when floppy drive support is enabled in the BIOS (even if you have no floppy disk drives installed) it makes the windows 7 install crawl.

I first noticed this when I was installing windows 7 for the first time on my computer. It would take ages even to get to the EULA screen. I did a quick search and it turns out this is a common problem. I turned floppy disk drive support off in the BIOS and after that the w7 install flew

Unregistered.

Made a lovely customized install using RT7. it allows you to set all the services before hamd which was great. just doing a last minute backup before re installation

Unregistered.

Made a lovely customized install using RT7. it allows you to set all the services before hamd which was great. just doing a last minute backup before re installation

Rambo

Unregistered. wrote: »

Hi all.



Edit: On the drivers, I have only the drivers that have sprung to mind from looking around, is there a way to get a definitive list of installed drivers?

Anything else?

Double driver is the best tool for backup of drivers
make sure you copy the drivers onto another drive before install

http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm

Ninite is a great batch installer! Just select what you want to install on their site, they'll give you an installer. When you install 7, just run the installer and install all the latest apps very quickly, bypassing all UAC and automatically saying no to all the crapware!

vibe666

Deleted User wrote: »

Ninite is a great batch installer! Just select what you want to install on their site, they'll give you an installer. When you install 7, just run the installer and install all the latest apps very quickly, bypassing all UAC and automatically saying no to all the crapware!

i love ninite, it's saved me hours of re-installs and they are very open to suggestions for new apps to include in their installer, so if something you really like is missing and you request it, if they get a few requests for the same thing, they will usually update the installer to include your suggested app as an option.

1st essential tip beforfe you flatten your PC for a rebuild, is make sure you have the drivers you need to get on the internet once windows is re-installed.

you'll want network card drivers (either wired, wireless or both) and any config info you might need to get you online. anything else drivers wise can be downloaded, but if you can't get online to start with, you're going to be a bit stuck if it's your only PC!

next, if at all possible i always insall windows 7 from usb as it's a lot quicker than CD/DVD. it used to be a bit of a PITA to get a windows ISO to boot from USB, but it's a lot easier now that MS have re-released their Windows 7 USB/DVD tool which makes converting any regular USB stick (should be 4gb or more) and a bootable ISO to a bootable USB stick a 2-3 click breeze and on a decent specced system you can be up and running at your windows desktop in 10 minutes (or less installing to an SSD).

the tool also works for other windows ISO's (2008 etc.) and possibly some non-windows ones too.

also, i always keep a 2nd hard drive installed in my desktop PC with all my local data on it and once i've got windows installed and i've run ninite to re-install all my apps, i browse to my user data folder in c:\users\my profile and right click on each folder, go to properties and change the location from c:\users\my_profile\foldername to d:\users\my_profile\foldername so that all my user files are moved off of the C drive to my data drive.

next time you flatten your PC it just takes 5 minutes to re-locate your profile folders again to your data drive and it will see the contents of everything already there from last time altho it may want to overwrite the odd desktop.ini file etc. but you can sort those few conflicts out easily enough afterwards.

doing it that way, you can safely flatten your C drive any time without having to worry too much about backing up your data beforehand, although you may want to be wary of apps that save data in odd places other than in your profile as their stuff would still be lost.

i know there's a way to totally relocate your user data to a different drive, but i was never bothered enough to have a dig into researching it and setting it up, as my quick and dirty way does the job nicely for me.

another option is the windows files & settings transfer wizard, which will pretty comprehensively copy all your stuff from one pc to another, although AFAIK if you're saving it to a usb drive or internal hdd, you'll have to manually exclude that drive or you'll get stuck as it will copy its contents too and you'll be saving stuff back on top of itself and it'll run out of space.

personally, i save it to a shared network drive if at all possible as it won't copy anything from network shares and it makes life a lot easier. try and do it with a wired connection tho, wireless will take forever if you have a big profile.

can't think of anything else at the minute, but i'm sure i will.

Unregistered.

vibe666 wrote: »

next, if at all possible i always insall windows 7 from usb as it's a lot quicker than CD/DVD.

This. Much faster.

vibe666

Unregistered. wrote: »

This. Much faster.

lots!

i install from a sandisk cruzer 4gb usb stick to a 2nd gen 60gb ssd and i timed it from the point where i hit enter to actually start installing windows (after the partitioning bit and choosing usernames etc) and its sitting at the desktop all finished and ready to go in just over 6 minutes.

the first time i did it, i walked out of the room to do something and it was done before i came back, so i ended up doing it all over again, jut so i could actually see it for myself.