Downloaded w7RC.iso last night, burned to DVD and installed it today. hmmm...

Seems the first partition is created by w7 of 100mb for System Reserve... then it lets you create a C partition for the install.

Ya think the October release will be the same?

Haven't tried booting with 2003 ghost yet to see if the sysres and C partitions are both visible...

anyone tried this already?

@ roxe

I guess you let Win7 create the partition. That 100 MB partition looks like an image/restore nightmare. You don't get the 100 MB partition if you create the Win7 partition before starting the Win7 install. Make sure there is no unallocated space on the HD.

During the Win7 install, click Advanced and make Win7 format the NTFS partition. It does different formatting from third party partitioning tools. Partitions formatted by third party partitioning tools fail to install Win7. The install hangs after the first reboot.

I've imaged/restored Win7 with Ghost 2003. Maybe I'm lucky.

Thanks! Brian...

OK, I'll repartition and format the drive before reinstalling w7... then I'll try ghosting with 2003 "to and from" and see what happens.

Ya think I'll still need to have w7 format if I do the partitioning/format with XP pro?

@ roxe


roxe wrote on Aug 21^st, 2009 at 3:56pm:

Ya think I'll still need to have w7 format if I do the partitioning/format with XP pro?

If you format with WinXP Disk Management, a format during the Win7 install isn't essential. But I'd do a quick format anyway. I make it a practice of letting the installing OS do the format.

Does W7, and Vista for that matter, use the same file system as WXP .. compatible I mean (all NTFS in name).

@ Rad

WinXP, Vista and Win7 are "supposed" to have the same version of NTFS. Win2000 has another version. WinNT has another version.

Because of these differing versions and the proprietary nature of NTFS, BING has a policy of not formatting NTFS. You can create a "NTFS partition" in BING but it has to be formatted by the OS. Either during the OS install or if it is a data partition, by Disk Management. Prior to formatting, the data partition shows in My Computer and Disk Management as a partition with a drive letter and no File System.

As a side note, for those using Windows 7 and want to extend the trial version to 3 months:

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/090820#story1

OK, repartitioned and formated the hdd as Brian suggested. Reinstalled w7... everything went into C drive. :)

The MB used for my install is 9894...

Ghosted it and then activated/updated with the five updates available. Installed firefox and threatfire. Ghosted again.

Reghosted the drive back to the first image. Booted in and it looked like it should.

Put the second image back on and it was like it should be also :)

Did notice while doing this, it only went to around 58% and then jumped immediately to 100%... both while making the images and restoring them.

Could that be the dump files, etc, that it is "jumping" over?? (or whatever you call it)

I did pick up a 3rd party defragger from the folks who make CCleaner... will try that and see what the graphic shows.

I'm really hoping that w7 is lots more open and transparent with how things work than this release is... especially I hope they come out quickly with a TweakUI for it... can't stand to be without my "type A personality" tweaker :D

I have noticed that this release of w7 appears to be really tight security-wise... the redundancy is almost awesome :D

I've always rejected M$'s spyware app cuz I use Threatfire. At least on this release it is installed automatically. GRRRRR...

Hopefully, n-lite will have a release for w7 real quick... cuz there is lots of stuff I want to get rid of... (type A again :))

roxe wrote on Aug 25^th, 2009 at 4:34pm:

Installed firefox and threatfire.

Does Threatfire work with other AntiVirus software? such as NOD32? No conflicts? Normally only one AV per system.

Are you using the freebie?

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64144-page,1-c,antivirus/description.html

You endorse?

Yes, I'm using the freebie Threatfire.

I really like it, and I endorse it whole-heartedly. I like the concept... have been running it now for about 6 months.

Altho the website recommends using TF with an AV, I haven't done so and so far haven't had any problems.

http://www.threatfire.com/

The 100 MB System Reserved Partition can be easily removed from the HD. This gives you an extra primary partition and makes image backup simpler.

Use a VistaPE boot CD or a BartPE CD to copy the contents of the SRP to the Win7 partition.
Use a BING CD to delete the SRP.
Use a BING CD to set the Win7 partition Active.
Win7 then boots normally.

A BCD Edit isn't needed.