One of the more interesting factors is the expiry date of that version of Windows 7. It has been set to March 2, 2010 which is roughly a year from today and about 7 months after the Windows 7 beta expiration date. This could help determine the time period in which Windows 7 will most likely be released officially. Latest opinions on the matter suggest a release in the first quarter of 2010 which would be backed up by the March 2010 expiration date. The expiration date of this Windows 7 build could mean that it is the release candidate build or a build close to that.

There are not many drastic changes in comparison to Windows 7 build 7048 which has been leaked before. Microsoft has made changes to the User Account Control, the Superbar and several layout and design changes like new user icons or wallpapers.

The screenshots and information about the latest leak seem to be legit. You can get the latest information about Windows 7 in the Windows 7 Forum.

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This essentially means that no data will be taken over automatically to the new operating system. Experienced Windows XP users should not have a problem installing Windows 7. They also should not have a problem backing up and moving their data to the new operating system. Inexperienced users on the other hand might wonder how they can move their pictures, music, emails and applications to the new operating system.

If you are running Windows XP on a computer system currently and want to upgrade to Windows 7 you basically have a few choices which largely depend on the storage capacities of the computer system. The easiest way would be to backup all data, format the hard drive and install Windows 7 afterwards. Some users might not like this solution. They could alternatively create and install Windows 7 on a second partition to create a dual booting operating system until all data from Windows XP has been moved to Windows 7.

Backup Data

We covered Windows Backup Software (Hard Drive Backup Software) before here at Ghacks. Both applications can be used to backup a hard drive. This obviously requires another storage device with enough hard drive space to transfer all of the data. It might be a good idea to backup the data even if you have the intention to install Windows 7 on a different partition. This might be less important for individuals but should be essential for business computers.

Installing Windows 7

We recommend to install Windows 7 on another partition or hard drive at the beginning. This will essentially create a dual-boot system with the option to switch between Windows XP and Windows 7. This is the easiest way to keep the Windows XP data for the time being as Windows 7 will not overwrite or tamper with the data of the Windows XP installation.

The other option would be to format the partition containing Windows XP and install Windows 7 on the (now) empty partition. The data of the Windows XP partition would be gone for good if it would not have been backed up first.

The third option is to install Windows 7 on the Windows XP partition without formatting the hard drive first. Most computer savvy users do not recommend this option as it can lead to all kinds of troubles and problems. It has virtually no benefits as the programs and applications of Windows XP cannot be used in Windows 7 without reinstalling them.

Moving data from Windows XP to Windows 7

Microsoft has created a tool called Windows Easy Transfer
which can be used to transfer data from Windows XP to Windows Vista. The application should also work in Windows 7 as Microsoft recommends it in the Windows 7 installation guide. The software can be used to transfer data over network, usb cable or disk to another operating system. It will copy files like music or pictures but also emails and settings to the new operating system.

If Windows 7 has been installed on a second partition or hard drive data can simply be copied by dragging and dropping it to the new partition. Some data might need to be imported, for example web browser bookmarks or emails. Please note that it is usually not possible to move installed applications to the new operating system. It is necessary to install them again when the new operating system is running.
If backups have been created the data can also be restored or extracted from the backups to the new operating system.

Verdict:

Inexperienced users will find it troublesome to move data from their old operating system to Windows 7. Microsoft should make sure to include a step by step guide prior to the release of Windows 7 that explains how to migrate the data to the new operating system.

If you run into troubles you can visit our sister site Windows 7 News or the Windows 7 Forum to find help with the migration and other Windows 7 related difficulties.

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The second interesting news story is that Microsoft decided to reduce the editions that Windows 7 will ship in when compared to Windows Vista. The so called edition chaos was one of the major reasons for confusion for prospective Windows Vista customers.

Windows 7 will basically be distributed as Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate. There are other versions but those are designed for different markets. Windows 7 Home Premium will be the equivalent of the Windows Vista Home Premium featuring a solid set of features. Windows 7 Professional will be the successor of Windows Vista Business which includes all features of Windows 7 Home Premium plus some business features like group policy based management tools, Remote Desktop host capabilities or network-based backup features.

Windows 7 Ultimate will include all features of Windows 7 Professional plus all supported language packs (something that the other editions miss and users have to pay for), BitLocker whole-drive encryption and capabilities to boot from vhd.

It basically comes down to three Windows 7 editions. It should also be noted that there are no talks yet about Windows 7 Ultimate extras, something that did not work as intended in Windows Vista as well as several users felt cheated by the lack of and quality of the extras.

Most of these information have been taken from our own Windows 7 blog which covers all the latest news about the upcoming operating system. A well visited Windows 7 Forum is available on the same site.

Do you think that those two strategic decisions by Microsoft are good ones? Will they convince Windows XP users to switch to Windows 7?

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Windows 7 will not assign a drive letter to the Windows Vista partition by default. Some say this is on purpose while others think that it is a bug. There is however an easy fix to access the data on the Vista drive in Windows 7.

Press [Windows], enter [diskmgmt.msc] and hit [enter] to open the Disk Management interface in Windows 7. You should see all the hard drives and partitions of the computer system. The partition containing the Windows Vista system should be without drive letter.

Right-click on the partition in the lower half of the screen and select Change Drive Letter And Path. Now click the Add button and assign a drive letter to the partition. The Windows Vista partition will now be visible in Windows 7. (via Dual Boot Partition not Showing in Windows 7)

A DVD drive not showing up in Windows 7 can have various reasons. One of the more common ones is if Windows 7 64-bit is installed on the computer. The 64-bit edition of Windows 7 verifies the digital signature of hardware drivers. If a driver cannot be verified it will be shown with a yellow exclamation mark in the device manager.

A quick workaround is to press F8 during boot to turn off digital signing. A permanent solution would be to disable the check of digital signatures completely:

1. Press Windows R, type regedit and press enter.

2. Open the Registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}

3. In the right pane, right-click UpperFilters, and then click Delete.

4. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the UpperFilters registry entry.

5. In the right pane, right-click LowerFilters, and then click Delete.

6. Click Yes to confirm the removal of the LowerFilters registry entry.

7. Exit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

via Windows 7 Not Recognizing DVD Drive

You can find more tips and help in our Windows 7 Forum.

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The Beta of Windows 7 is based on build 7000 which has been leaked to the dark side of the Internet last month. There has been lots of talk about the new “features” of Windows 7 and we do not want to get into detail here as you have most likely read about them all on other sites in the past months. To make it short: Windows 7 feels like a complete responsive operating system. Many users would say it looks and feels like a streamlined and optimized Windows Vista. It uses less system resources, is more responsive and has several usability improvements. It is interesting for instance that netbook manufacturers will release netbooks running on Windows 7 when it comes out, something that seems very unlikely for Windows Vista.

We (that’s me and Everton who writes at Connected Internet) have a Windows 7 site up which is reporting on all the news about the new Microsoft operating system. The site has a busy forum, probably the busiest Windows 7 forum out there at the moment. You can find hardware and software help at the Windows 7 forum, a tweaks section and several boards with general discussion about the upcoming operating system.

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