Keypek
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Am finally in the process of upgrading my, almost, 4 year old computer. It's a quad core Gateway FX7024 but it came with shitty 32 bit Vista for some freaking reason... still slapping myself every day for not checking that before I bought it... but anyway. Want to upgrade to Windows 7 so that I can actually get 8 gigs of ram instead of the junk 3 that I'm stuck with at the moment. But apparently Gateway never bothered making drivers for Win 7 for their desktops that originally shipped with vista.
But just curious if anyone has ever upgraded from vista to 7 on a gateway and if there were any unexpected problems I should know about? I found some supposed drivers for win7 for gateways at
http://www.do-download.com/System/Backup-Restore/Gateway-FX7024-158833.html
but haven't really looked at it yet to see if this will fix the problem after I load 7 on.
Also, I'm assuming an upgrade would work from 32 bit to Windows 7? Since I have to pretty much reformat my entire computer to switch to 64 bit but from what I understand the discs you get in the upgrade package will pretty much take care of this as long as you do a custom install? Just trying to cover my bases before I go out and spend money on a new OS, 8 gigs of Ram, and the time doing it all.
But curious if anyone has any experience with this at all or advice to avoid.
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Acao
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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If you can get all of the Win 7 drivers direct instead of from Gateway you should have no problem. You might lose any special abilities that Gateway specific drivers might give you though.
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Dresler
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Keypek posted:
Am finally in the process of upgrading my, almost, 4 year old computer. It's a quad core Gateway FX7024 but it came with shitty 32 bit Vista for some freaking reason... still slapping myself every day for not checking that before I bought it... but anyway. Want to upgrade to Windows 7 so that I can actually get 8 gigs of ram instead of the junk 3 that I'm stuck with at the moment. But apparently Gateway never bothered making drivers for Win 7 for their desktops that originally shipped with vista.
But just curious if anyone has ever upgraded from vista to 7 on a gateway and if there were any unexpected problems I should know about? I found some supposed drivers for win7 for gateways at
http://www.do-download.com/System/Backup-Restore/Gateway-FX7024-158833.html
but haven't really looked at it yet to see if this will fix the problem after I load 7 on.
Also, I'm assuming an upgrade would work from 32 bit to Windows 7? Since I have to pretty much reformat my entire computer to switch to 64 bit but from what I understand the discs you get in the upgrade package will pretty much take care of this as long as you do a custom install? Just trying to cover my bases before I go out and spend money on a new OS, 8 gigs of Ram, and the time doing it all.
But curious if anyone has any experience with this at all or advice to avoid.
Can't you just trade in your Windows Vista 32 bit discs (if Gateway gives you those) for the 64 bit version? Thought you could send them in to Microsoft and they would send you the other version you needed. It also isn't Win7 that gives you access to the more RAM but the 64-bit portion (XP, Vista, and Win7 all have 32-bit and 64-bit versions).
I thought that Vista / Win7 drivers worked pretty much across each, the big difference being if going from 32-bit to 64-bit for either OS.
I know going from any pre-built system can be a pain switching between OS's though. I had a lot of issues with a HP machine that I had got when I began college. I went to switch from Windows ME to Windows 2000 or XP. Video Card, Sound Card both didn't have ANY drivers which would work on anything EXCEPT for Windows ME.
I'd really recommend looking into if you can find drivers which will work for your hardware.
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Keypek
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Acao posted:
If you can get all of the Win 7 drivers direct instead of from Gateway you should have no problem. You might lose any special abilities that Gateway specific drivers might give you though.
I was reading something earlier that led me to believe it wasn't possible to get them directly but now I can't find what I was reading lol. Might just try it and troubleshoot it as I go. Will just get the family pack and upgrade my wife's computer and our laptop at the same time so not like I'd be wasting money either way I guess. Get the RAM if it works afterwards hehe. My computer could use a good wipe anyway.
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Keypek
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Dresler posted:
Can't you just trade in your Windows Vista 32 bit discs (if Gateway gives you those) for the 64 bit version? Thought you could send them in to Microsoft and they would send you the other version you needed. It also isn't Win7 that gives you access to the more RAM but the 64-bit portion (XP, Vista, and Win7 all have 32-bit and 64-bit versions).
I thought that Vista / Win7 drivers worked pretty much across each, the big difference being if going from 32-bit to 64-bit for either OS.
I know going from any pre-built system can be a pain switching between OS's though. I had a lot of issues with a HP machine that I had got when I began college. I went to switch from Windows ME to Windows 2000 or XP. Video Card, Sound Card both didn't have ANY drivers which would work on anything EXCEPT for Windows ME.
I'd really recommend looking into if you can find drivers which will work for your hardware.
Yeah I think that's part of the problem with it being a pre built and coming with 32 on it instead of isntalling myself, etc. Going to see if there is anything specific I can find tonight and download on to something to have ready in case I need. All the research I've done online I'm about 50/50 on seeing stuff that says I'll have problems and others saying it'll be easy. /shrug.
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Mortalis3
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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From the Gateway website:
How do I upgrade Windows 7 on my computer from the version that it shipped with?
If your computer came with an edition of Windows 7 that lacks a particular feature found in other versions of the operating system, Microsoft offers the Windows Anytime Upgrade program that will let you install a more feature rich edition of Windows 7. For details on the requirements and pricing of this program, please visit Microsoft’s Windows Anytime Upgrade website.
Note: Gateway only provides support for the operating system that originally shipped with your computer. Gateway will not be able to assist with nor provide support for upgrading or changing the operating system.
If your computer was eligible for an operating system upgrade or downgrade through an Gateway upgrade or downgrade promotion, these operating systems will be supported, provided the upgrade or downgrade was done by using Gateway upgrade or downgrade media.
To upgrade your system to Windows 7 64 you will need to purchase the operating system.
You then be required to either to install the new operating system to a new partition on the hard disk (dual boot) or reformat the harddrive (lose all existing data) and then install the new operating system.
I installed Windows 7 64 bit on my Dell XPS 630i that is about the same age as your Gateway. It was not an issue at all. All the drivers for my hardware were included in the new operating system.
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Keypek
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Mortalis3 posted:
From the Gateway website:
How do I upgrade Windows 7 on my computer from the version that it shipped with?
If your computer came with an edition of Windows 7 that lacks a particular feature found in other versions of the operating system, Microsoft offers the Windows Anytime Upgrade program that will let you install a more feature rich edition of Windows 7. For details on the requirements and pricing of this program, please visit Microsoft’s Windows Anytime Upgrade website.
Note: Gateway only provides support for the operating system that originally shipped with your computer. Gateway will not be able to assist with nor provide support for upgrading or changing the operating system.
If your computer was eligible for an operating system upgrade or downgrade through an Gateway upgrade or downgrade promotion, these operating systems will be supported, provided the upgrade or downgrade was done by using Gateway upgrade or downgrade media.
To upgrade your system to Windows 7 64 you will need to purchase the operating system.
You then be required to either to install the new operating system to a new partition on the hard disk (dual boot) or reformat the harddrive (lose all existing data) and then install the new operating system.
I installed Windows 7 64 bit on my Dell XPS 630i that is about the same age as your Gateway. It was not an issue at all. All the drivers for my hardware were included in the new operating system.
Yeah I think that blurb that you quoted from the gateway site is what originally made me start second guessing it. But heck I'll give it a shot. Never done this before so am all about the learning experiences anyway hehe. Thanks for the info all.
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Locuus
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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If you are afraid you might lose some important features you can always create an image of your hard drive as it is right now. That way if something goes terribly wrong you can restore the system to how it is now.
I have never owned a Gateway, but I have always upgraded Windows on my Dells, HPs and Toshiba laptops with no problems. Also Vista and Win 7 have a lot of inter-compatible drivers so my gut is telling me you should be fine going to Win 7.
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Acao
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Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Locuus posted:
If you are afraid you might lose some important features you can always create an image of your hard drive as it is right now. That way if something goes terribly wrong you can restore the system to how it is now.
I have never owned a Gateway, but I have always upgraded Windows on my Dells, HPs and Toshiba laptops with no problems. Also Vista and Win 7 have a lot of inter-compatible drivers so my gut is telling me you should be fine going to Win 7.
If the hard drive is big enough dual boot as Mortalis recommended would be the best route. Then if everything works fine you can wipe the Vista partition.
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Luryn
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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You might want to download the HCL program from Microsoft and run it.
Link
Don't worry, it's free and from Microsoft site.
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Mortalis3
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Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Keypek
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Subject:
Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Well had to spend about 4 hours trying to get it to start the install process because it wouldn't recognize my dvd rom for some reason. Eventually just ended up copying the boot stuff over to a usb stick and changed my bios around to boot from there first then quickly took out the usb stick and changed bios back to boot from hardrive first after that and it worked perfectly from there. Dvd worked after that just for some reason wouldn't begin the process. And haven't had any other issues yet.
Thanks for the responses all.
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Mortalis3
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Anyone upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 on a Gateway before?
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Glad to hear you were able to overcome the obstacle. Enjoy your windows7 experience. It is a much more stable OS than vista.
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