probably want to make an image of your opperating system for a easy backup b4 installing....

Hp upgrade 120 bucks.. http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Accessories/Software?PageNumber=1&PageSize=15&SearchParameter=%26%40QueryTerm%3D*%26CategoryUUIDLevelX%3DzUEQxXjbvR8AAAE0r09cZzPL%26CategoryUUIDLevelX%252FzUEQxXjbvR8AAAE0r09cZzPL%3DGO0QwSh_8C0AAAE015A_ez3g

newegg win7pro upgrade 70 bucks http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006587%2050001149&IsNodeId=1&Description=windows%207%20upgrade&name=Microsoft&Order=BESTMATCH

Sounds like those are upgrade disks. Would it be best to upgrade or get a CD that reformats my C Drive & puts W7? The desktop is not too old, about 4 years or so.

But if I ever have to reinstall the os, for whatever reason, I am concerned that putting XP from the HP CDs and then upgrading XP to 7 may not work if my HP CDs have been corrupted/damaged from the Texas sun while stored in the attic.

I would burn an image of your xp install.
If you need to reinstall the win7 upgrade.. just reimage the C drive to xp as it is now from the image you saved first if needed.

Full install is best for sure, some more money is all,, and you will lose all installed programs and need to reinstall and lose docs/picts etc unless you save those somewhere.

I'd go with the win8 pro upgrade for $40 .. 1st burn a copy of it to dvd before installing it ... plus burn an image of the xp before running the upgrade.

First run the W7 adviser. It's report will link you to many pertinent info sites. There will be additional sites linked from there. Read em all.

When you do the so called clean install it MUST install over the previous XP. It wipes the HDD clean and saves all the XP files in a file called Windows.old which I think contains the entire w/XP or at least drive C:\. On my HP Refurbished Readymade $125 confuser that file is about 46 G. So it is extensive. It may be accessed various ways - I haven't had the need.

After you are confident you don't need windows.old it may be removed if you wish. All this is spelled out in those links.

I had only 1 old program that wasn't compatible with w/7. Solitare. What a downer. :-(

I highly recommend a full clean install. Plus you definitely need to go to the website mentioned to make sure your pc is capable of running 7.
How much ram do you have on the pc?

Back up what you want to save then wipe and full install.

here is a pretty simple guide which takes advantage of the Easy Transfer option that is in windows 7

How to Clean Install Windows 7 over Windows XP

I think I have 2GB of RAM. Since the PC has had XP since day 1 at least 4 years ago, I am leaning towards a "full install" as you call it. Carbonite is taking care of the stuff that I need to save so pics/files should be good right now.

I ran the advisor program from MS some months ago and sortofkindof remember it saying most everything would be fine but there would be some drivers that conflicted. But since I am doing a full install, I would have to install all the programs again so that would be ok.

One question though. About the lingo used on some comments. If I am planning to do a full o/s install, how come some of the comments above say that I should be buying a win7 upgrade CD? Should I not be getting a full install CD instead? Maybe I do not understand the difference....

Yes, if you search Google there's some articles on how you can get away with using an upgrade cd, but it would be best to keep it simple.

I would suggest getting more ram it is cheap and easy to install and 7 really needs as much as you can afford.

You may be confusing update with upgrade and clean install. The terminology here is confusing unless you study all the links in the advisor. Run it again and it wouldn't hurt to print out the installation instructions either. It is about a 2 hour install process. Partly because it retrieves and installs ms updates.

Now. Get the upgrade. You start with XP running, insert the CD, and follow instructions and it removes XP, formats the C:\drive, removes partitions you don't need, fixes up the disk one way or another and then installs w/7. Very simple.

This is effectively gives you a clean install because the W/7 is NOT installed on top of the W/XP. I don't recall the word clean in any of the literature related to this. I do believe it is just a slang term.

You may have an option to start the comp with the W/7 upgrade disk (not with XP), click Custom (advanced), drive options (advanced). Then I guess you can reformat the stupid thing yourself. Why you would want to do this is beyond me.

My old HP DC7600 SFF refurb ($125) :-) had 1 Gig Ram - I upped it to 4G, the max it would take, and installed the 64bit W/7. It had W/XP Pro/32 bit. Runs fine but I don't do heavy stuff. At the end there is a disk cleanup procedure if you wish. So:

Run the advisor again. Read all the links plus the one RC provided. Slide all your Dot.Exe's to a thumb drive. Print the install directions. Use the W/7 Upgrade. Go for it, man. Lettuce Know.

Update and upgrade use to have two clearly defined meanings with appropriate dedicated use. Now-a-days users, websites, and product manufacturers throw the terminology around as though they are interchangable. It can be very confusing for some, particularly the new users.

DA

My understanding is that 32 bit Windows is limited in the amount of RAM it can utilize while 64 bit W/7 can handle nearly any amount of RAM. Physically the system is limited by the constraints of the MOBO. So the older MOBO's will dictate how far you can go with this upgrading and it's probly a mistake to upgrade an old comp just because of the age of the MOBO.

I had bot my old DC7600 for a difrunt purpose and my plans changed. The W/7 adviser said it would handle the 64 bit so I did it merely to learn W/7 for the nominal price of the CD. Had my original intent been W/7 I would have bot a much newer comp with w/7 installed, much more RAM capability, and a MOBO that could be configured to accept an SSD. (Just because I want one).

Put a 30 dollar pci express sata adapter in and buy yourself a SSD.

My laptop is sata3 capable but came with sata2 hdd,, I'm tempted to do the ssd and stick my hard drive in my dvd spot & learn to live with an external dvd. But I want the really expensive faster SSD... so I'll wait a year for the price to hopefully come down.

Well I sure don't know all that much about it but here's what I found.

It seems that to install the W/7 on an ssd you have to go into the bios and change SATA to AHCI. Neither of my MOBO's had this option. According to the Crucial scan my DC7600 would support their ssd but lots of other info says don't do it. It may have worked anyway but I decided not to chance it.

They had 2 kinds; M4 and T4 (I think) and the price seemed OK if you settled for smaller capacity like 160G - plenty for me. The T4 was for older comps etc you'd have to read their site I can't remember it all. Really it was a month ago:-)

I took a stab at updating my HP MOBO, which is not recommended, in hopes it would be able to change the BIOS and evidently that is a dangerous thing to do at least for a rooky. It didn't work so I guv it up on the 1st try.

OOps! Guess I should apologize looks like I hijakt this thread - better quit. Sorry.