shadowx 0 Report post Posted October 1, 2009 Heres the dealio. Ive bought a gaming PC. nothing spectacular but compared to my 2-3yr old laptop its a beast. Its arrived today while im here at work and it comes with Vista, which we all know is the worst OS ever written since... Well whatever came before XP really. MY machine also comes with a free upgrade to Windows 7 (w7) when it comes out here in the UK.Excellence, assuming w7 is a decent OS i can just do an "in place upgrade" and keep my games etc... WRONG!Microsoft is throwing a hissy fit because the EU doesnt like the way they force IE, windows media player etc... down your throat so w7 comes without IE and presumably during install asks you which browser you want to use from a list including FF, opera etc... and then downloads it for you or unpacks it from the disk. Because of this MS are trying to irritate users and the EU into letting it off by making the european version of w7 require a CLEAN install so all my Vista settings and all my downloaded (legal) programs get deleted.Not good, really not good. But im thinking, if i partition the drive as soon as i get it and keep the windows crap to one partition (lets say C:) and then install everything to a D: partition (or x, y, z depending where my DVD drive is) then when it comes to install perhaps w7 will only erase the C: partition and ill keep all my stuff.What do you guys think? and also, if i did that would the programs still work, because presumably the registry entries will go bye bye too so game settings and what not wont be kept. And with the pay to play type games with serial codes im guessing that the games wont recognise the w7 upgrade and will think they have been installed twice so the keys wont work?What a mess... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rayzoredge 2 Report post Posted October 1, 2009 Save yourself the trouble and re-install everything.Yeah... you read that right. I would research how to save game save files for each and every game, and back up everything that you feel needs to be backed up before proceeding. There are some games that work regardless of registry entries, but I'm sure there will be some that will throw a hissy fit, especially moving onto a new operating system.As far as game serial keys go, I don't know what to tell you but shrug my shoulders. I'm sure that EA as well as every other evil company attempting DRM tactics will have to answer to banned serial keys due to multiple installations [on the same machine], so maybe there will be an answer from the company level. I'm not sure if companies check hash codes to verify that the software key being checked against the database checks for the software being installed on the same machine (much like OEM versions of Windows)... but I guess you'll find out, won't you? Good luck. Hopefully this doesn't eat up too much of your time... two to four hours, tops. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadowx 0 Report post Posted October 1, 2009 It all depends how they tie the game to the system i guess, if they do it much like WGA by generating a hash based on the hardware present then it wont have any effect....Im not sure whether its worth upgrading to 7 or not now... I cant stand Vista, its just XP on RAM-Munching steroids and im hoping w7 has reduced that RAM munching to a more suitable level. It has 4gb RAM and quad core (yeh, im just bragging ) so i dont suppose Vista will cripple it in any way, i plan on doing a few tweak once the initial "ZOMG! Look at this thing! I have to install and run a game on full GFX right NOW!" period has cooled off so i can get a few extra ticks out of it.Most of the games ill be playing are online so the game-save data isnt too important, not yet anyway and i can easily copy patches and what not over using an external drive, save me several hours of patch downloading.Does anyone know if theres a vast difference in performance between Vista and 7? Im assuming the US has had w7 for a little while now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
