Upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7
Windows7Update.com is proud to recommend Zinstall for your
move from Windows XP to Windows 7.
Zinstall is a family of products that provide end-point PC
migration solutions unavailable with conventional
technologies and tools.
Zinstall products allow to quickly and easily migrate the
entire user environment from any existing personalized PC:
- To a new OS – for example, Windows XP to Windows 7
- To a different hardware
- To a centralized, virtualized environment (Desktop Virtualization)
If
you’ve already got Windows Vista on your PC then upgrading
to Windows 7 is a simple matter.
The Windows 7 installer
program provides an ‘upgrade’ option that allows you to
quickly install Windows 7 on top of Vista, leaving all your
other programs and files untouched.
Unfortunately, that’s not an option if you’re in the
majority of people who are still running Windows XP.
You can only install Windows 7 by doing a ‘custom’
install, which is a euphemism for ‘backup all your important
files onto an external hard disk and then wipe your hard
disk clean so that you can install Windows 7 from scratch’.
You then have to reinstall all your applications and files
before you can get back to work again – not to mention
possibly having to locate an assortment of new drivers for
your graphics card and other hardware components.
Of course, reinstalling all those applications, files and
drivers can take a fair amount of time and this is where
Zinstall comes in.
Zinstall doesn’t allow you to upgrade your existing Windows
XP installation and replace it with Windows 7 while leaving
all your programs and files in place.
Zinstall is a virtualization package that builds a Windows
XP machine within your new edition of Windows 7 – complete
with all your old files, folders and programs.
You still have to use the ‘custom’ option in the Windows 7
installer program to create a clean Windows 7 installation.
However, during this process, Microsoft’s installer program shunts all your old Windows XP files into a folder called ‘Windows.old’ to keep them out of the way.
After installing Windows 7 you can then install Zinstall
XP7 and it will use the contents of that Windows.old
folder to create a kind of virtual machine that duplicates
your original Windows XP installation.
Zinstall refers to each operating system as a ‘desktop’, and
you can switch between the Windows XP and Windows 7 desktops
simply by clicking on the Zinstall icon in the Taskbar in
either Windows 7 or XP environments.
The program does work well – after installing Windows 7 on
my test laptop, Zinstall XP7 required just a single mouse
click to start running, and then took about 20 minutes to
set up my original Windows XP installation as a new virtual
‘desktop’.
Rather than as a windowed mode, your original XP installation appears in a full screen layout. You can run your old programs in this virtual machine, with the exception of 3D games.
Once setup, a shared folder allows you to easily transfer files between the real and virtual machines.
Zinstall XP7 works not only for people upgrading from XP to
Windows 7 “in-place”, but also for anyone who is buying a
new computer.
Zinstall XP7 transfers everything from the old computer to the new one in a click – including all programs, settings and files.
I wholeheartedly recommend this for the move to Windows 7 from XP.
Windows7update.com is a certified Zinstall partner.
You can purchase the following Zinstall XP7 products from this site.
Zinstall XP7 Consumer Edition, designed for the average user who wants to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 and keep all their files, folders and documents intact.
Zinstall HDD Edition performs a quick, efficient and hassle-free migration of your current system to a new hard drive.