How to install Windows 7, upgrade from Microsoft XP, to Windows 7

http://www.anthonyblando.com Unfortunately if you are going to be installing Windows 7 and you're currently running Microsoft XP you will need to do a fresh install of Windows 7. There is not a direct upgrade path from XP to Windows 7. This being the case you are going to need to move all of your existing data off of the existing hard drive and back it up prior to a fresh install. If you do not do this you will lose all of your data. That means you'll lose all your music files Word files and Excel files movie files and any other information that was on the computer. To avoid this follow these steps.

Simple backup:

The backup methodology has become more popular. Companies are finding that there is a huge margin in storing data. That being the case there are no shortage of companies to choose from. I would say the three most popular would be Carbonite, Mozy and Amazon S3.

Carbonite:

Carbonite is a program that will run in the background and move all of your data offsite. This is a very simple way to back up your data. It is also very inexpensive. $54.95 per year. The disadvantage is it will take you about one week to back up 100 GB of data. However if you store locally to a USB hard drive and use Carbonite you will have two copies of your data and one of them is stored off site. This gives you the greatest probability of recovering your data if there is a data loss.

Passwords:

Don't forget to back up your passwords. A lot of computers have automatic password saving devices on them. They are a great time saver when you're just surfing the Internet but once you go to reinstall your operating system you may forget your user name and password this can cause a time of frustration. I really like the program "Last Past". Basically you have one primary login through the Firefox browser interface. Once you log in to "Last Past" the program will give you access automatically to all of your websites that you have saved your information on. For the most part the program is fairly safe and will automatically log out if you are not online. If you're not comfortable using a third-party software company to help you remember your passwords just make sure you write them down. And then destroy the evidence after you've reloaded all your programs.

Bookmarks:

Another thing that a lot of people forget to do is to back up their bookmarks. If you are running a browser like chrome or Firefox and you have a lot of your bookmarks as part of your browser as soon as you load your operating system and then load your favorite browser you will become painfully aware that your bookmarks are missing. This can cause a huge amount of frustration. But don't worry there are plenty of bookmarking websites out there like Google bookmark and read it etc. Most browsers also will allow you to export the HTML of your bookmarks. As long as you remember to do it.

Pictures:

Let's not forget pictures. It is not unusual for most end-users to have a plethora of photographs on their computers and if they were to lose data this would be the data that they would not want to lose. For that reason there are a lot of photographs websites that enable you to back up your photographs directly online. Picasa, Flickr, photo bucket and shutterFly to name a few.

Music and movies:

I think you get the picture now. Yes you want to back up all your data.

Do I need to back up my programs?

No. You will actually need to reinstall all of your programs . If you are taking an image of your hard drive you would not need to reinstall your programs but because you're doing a fresh install and not an upgrade you will need to reinstall all of your programs. iTunes, Adobe, photo editing software, video editing software, compression software, and anything else you can think of.

Yes. I know backing up sounds like a big pain in the butt. However this is something you would need to do whether you're upgrading your current computer to a new operating system or if you are going to go out and purchase a new computer. This is also the type of thing you should be getting as best practice so you don't lose any of your important data. So stop whining and get to work.