Switching from Windows 7 Home 32 bit to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit; necessary steps

Howdy--

I'm upgrading to a 64 bit version of Windows, and I need to made sure that my data makes it over fine. Thus far, I have copied the Downloads and a specific Program folder from My Documents, both of which contain the data that I am interested in preserving. I have not copied my .pvm file.

Here are my questions:

1. Do I need to copy my .pvm file (it's huge)
2. What are the specific steps to install the new 64 bit OS and remove the old 32 bit OS?

Thanks!

Aventeren

 

Hello aventeren,

Backing up the Virtual Machine will be helpful, if the installation of Windows 7 64 bit fails. You may delete the .PVM file once you have installed

Windows 7 64 bit successfully on your Parallels Desktop.

Please follow the steps as suggested at http://kb.parallels.com/8829 to backup the existing Virtual Machine

Also copy all the important files, data's and folder's separately on an External Hard Drive.

To upgrade from Windows 7 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit Operating System :

1. Shutdown your Windows 7 32 bit Virtual Machine by going to : Virtual Machine -> Shutdown

2. Do not close Parallels Desktop window.

3. Insert the Windows 7 64 bit DVD on your Mac.

4. Go to VM Config ( http://kb.parallels.com/117287 ) -> Hardware -> Click on CD/DVD option in Hardware section.
Make sure the source is set to "CD/DVD".
Click on the "Boot order" settings. Set "Boot order" to "CD/DVD, Hard Disk, Floppy".

5. Start the Virtual Machine again and it will began to install the Windows 7 64 bit Operating System automatically from your DVD.

6. Once the installation is completed, eject the DVD from your DVD drive.

7. Go to VM Config ( http://kb.parallels.com/117287) -> Hardware -> Boot Order -> Set "Boot order" to "Hard Disk, CD/DVD, Floppy".

8. Start the Virtual Machine again and paste all the files into your windows 7 64 bit operating system from your External Drive.

9. Re-install all the applications that you would like to use it on your Windows 7 64 bit Virtual Machine.

 

[h=1]Windows Easy Transfer[/h]http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer

 

Max Recommended Memory

Thanks for your help, Maheesh. I was able to successfully upgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. All in all, it went basically like you indicated. I'm currently going through the Windows Updates--and the first batch is 148! Gulp. Onward and upward. This will soon be over.

I have a an early 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i7 and 8 GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 memory. I'm currently running Mavericks, and I'll upgrade to Yosemite when it's out.

I have a question about max memory settings. The reason that I upgraded to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit was because I am running a piece of trading software that is VERY memory and processor intensive. At the suggestion of a forum that I am member of, I upgraded to 64 bit. Now that I have access to a more powerful version of Windows to drive my trading program, I would like to know what the strengths and weaknesses are with allocating the full 8 GB of memory to the 64 bit Windows Virtual Machine. I am especially interested in providing the VM with as much computing, processing and memory power as possible. What are my options, and how would you suggest that I configure Parallels to strike the best balance between the VM and my Mac OS?

Please let me know if you have any questions--or if you have any other ideas for how to improve my VM performance.

Thanks!

Aventeren

 

Hi Aventeren,

Its great to hear that you were able to upgrade your Windows 7 to 64 bit successfully.

Also regarding your question of allocating the full 8 GB of memory to the 64 bit Windows Virtual Machine :

If too much memory is allocated to Windows Virtual Machine, Mac OS X may slow down, which in turn can cause Windows programs to slow down because

they are running on top of Mac OS X. If, on the other hand, a little memory is allocated to Windows, then Mac OS X applications may run well but

Windows programs might be slow.

Please follow the steps to know about How much memory you should assign to your Virtual Machine :

http://kb.parallels.com/113649

This should help you in providing a better performance for your Virtual Machine.

Feel free to get back to us if you need any assistance and we will be happy to help you.

 

To expand on what as been said with the specifics of your situation.

You have 8 GB of RAM that have to be shared between OSX and Windows, OSX requires at least 2 GB, that leaves you with 6 GB at most to assign for Windows. But if you are running apps on both sides at the same time then 4 GB for each side is more adequate.

Also, the reason for the upgrading may be ill funded, it's not a more powerful version of Windows, not in that way, it actually consumes a bit more RAM, the main advantage is the ability for one app to use more than 2 GB of real memory (and plus 2 GB of virtual memory), but this app has to be 64 bit also, is your trading program 64 bit? Will it actually require the consumption of that much memory? Processing wise, you won't see a difference.

But most importantly if the trading app isn't itself 64 bit then you actually have a worst situation than before because you have an OS that consumes a bit more RAM.

 

Thanks, Specimen--great information.

The trading program is 64 bit.

I've heard that there is a way to set up an external drive as additional memory. Do you know how I might do that?

What would you specifically suggest and recommend I do to maximize the available memory and processing power in my particular situation?

Thanks,

Aventeren

 

An external or internal drive does not increase the RAM, generally when talking about memory we are referring to RAM which is a kind of storage that has very very high access, read and write speeds, when you launch a program the computer reads from the disk (another type of storage, much slower but with larger capacities) and puts those bytes into the RAM for faster, instant access.

We normally refer to RAM as memory and to hard disk or SSD capacity as storage. Although it's actually possible to map a certain area of the disk as 'memory' the problem is that the there is an incredible loss of speed, and in fact, this is already done with the so called pagefile, which is a file residing on the disk which receives the contents of the RAM when it starts to get full, when this happens we call it 'paging', and usually results in an enormous slowdown, SSDs however are faster than HDs and this decrease of speed is less noticeable, but the speed difference between RAM and SSD is till huge, nonetheless.

You can increase your RAM by adding memory sticks, this results in noticeable speed gains, I believe this is your Mac:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/app...-13-early-2011-unibody-thunderbolt-specs.html


It actually supports up to 16 GB (http://blog.macsales.com/9283-owc-a...m-upgrade-for-latest-apple-macbook-pro-models , note that the prices are actually much lower now), if you really want to take the most advantage of 64 bit, you should upgrade your RAM to 16 GB (for about $200), this will allow you to assign up to 12 GB to Windows and still have great leg room on OSX.

If you maintain the current RAM, you can assign 6 GB to the VM but in order for this to work smoothly you should close most apps on OSX side, specially browsers (a browser can easily consume more than 1 GB of RAM). However, if you want to do other things on OSX side, including browsing, I would recommend giving only 4 GB to the VM.
And follow the other recommendations in the links Parallels Support Team gave you.

 

Great information, thanks Specimen!

From looking at the link that you provided, it appears that although Apple says that my system only supports 8 GB of RAM, in fact it may be able to support 16 GB of RAM, which had I known that when I had initially upgraded my RAM, I would have upgraded to 16 GB instead of 8 GB. Arrrggg. I'll get more memory on the way.

On the RAM side, clearly I need to stick with DDR3, but can I go higher than 1333 MHz?

Additionally, I may order a new SSD, which should also help to speed things up.

Thanks for your help!

 

I just ordered 16GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD.

I think both of those will help.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

All best,

Aventeren

 

Even if you get a higher MHz RAM the system will clock it down to 1333 MHz.

Yes, replacing the internal HD for an SSD will also greatly increase the overall speed, this will make your 3 year old computer feel like a new machine.

Good luck with your new rig, sure looks nice and speedy, I am a bit envious myself.

 

Thanks, Specimen; I'm on my computer every day for hours AND my machine is >3 years old now, so it's probably time.

Thanks for all your help,

Aventeren

 

Specimen--

So I successfully installed my new RAM and SSD. I restored my Mac related stuff from Time Machine onto the new SSD, which appears to have worked fairly well.

However, it doesn't look like my Windows 64 bit OS within Parallels made it through the Time Machine Restore. I read another thread where you recommended that the VM Windows OS will need to be re-installed after a hard drive switch. Does this recommendation still hold?

Also, it does not look like I am able to access any of my Time Machine back ups from yesterday or beyond. Are there any tricks with being able to access older Time Machine back ups? I had done some work within my Windows 64 VM environment that I would like to retain if I have to do a fresh Windows 64 bit install, but I can't seem to get at those back up files.

Finally, will I run into any issues with using the same Windows installation key on this new SSD?

Thanks,

Aventeren

 

Is this VM Bootcamp based? If it is TM cannot backup it.
If it's not Time machine backup of VMs is optional, personally I rather not use it as it will fill the backup drive quickly. You can simply copy the .pvm from the old disk to the other to the same location.

You cannot access old TMs directly because the new drive has a new id so it's considered a different machine. This is something specifically related to TM and new drives there must be instructions floating around on the internet.

 

Specimen--

Just a quick update to let you know that I've made the switch over, and everything is working great. Thanks again for your help.

I have one more question: I use two Thunderbolt monitors (and don't use my laptop monitor). Currently I have just been running my VM on one monitor. Is it possible to use both monitors? If so, how? It sure would be nice to use more of my available screen real estate.

Thanks!

Aventeren