Upgrading to Windows 7 64 Bit from Windows XP

Successfully upgrade Win xp 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit

I upgraded my Windows XP 32 bit to Windows 7 64 bit using the upgrade disc.

1) Boot from DVD - I went to configuration for the XP virtual machine and went to Hardware > Boot Order > Changed CD/DVD to the top position.

2) Inserted my Windows 7 64 bit upgrade disc into the CD tray

3) Booted my XP virtual machine but immediately held Control + F12

4) Got Windows 7 Install screen.

5) Selected Custom install.

6) Selected to install into the partition for "System."

Let the computer do the rest. It took about 1/2 hour.

 

Thank You!

This is exactly what I needed to know!!

 

Found a fix for this

Trying to upgrade, or rather replace my Windows XP 32 bit in Parallels 6 with Windows 7 64 bit.

Could not get Windows XP to see the contents of the install DVD, instead it showed it as a Network Drive, but I couldn't set that up as a boot device.

In the VM configuration menu I saw that I had 2 different DVD drives, Matshita DVD-R UJ-898 and also UJ-895. I changed the selected model to UJ-898 and almost immediately after saving the settings a not popped up to tell me that the installer I was using was not compatible with the XP 32 bit OS.

I changed the boot order to start with DVD. Now it said attempting to boot from DVD, press any key to boot from DVD, but it would then go on to boot into XP anyway.

I saw in one of the much earlier posts that someone recommended also changing the bios. I hit the F2 key on restart and it went into the very limited BIOS (I think that's what it was) that gave me 2 options: Windows Setup and Windows memory configuration. When I chose Windows Setup it booted from the DVD and installed Windows 7 (or rather it started to, it hasn't finished yet).

In case anyone was wondering, you can not select Upgrade when installing Windows 7 64 bit over Windows XP 32 bit, it wont work because the installer isn't recognized by XP.

 

Two More Questions

1) Were you upgrading using the Win XP to Win 7 upgrade CD or upgrading your system by installing a full, new Win 7 OS? (I want to do the former.)

2) Do I have to do anything special re: saving files from the Win XP VM? Is this automatically taken care of using the Parallels migrate feature? I have a 500 GB Time Machine external drive w/ 200+ GB free space that I had planned on using for this purpose (if necessary); when I use "configure," I only see one HD, which I assume is not the Time Machine HD. Does Time Machine automatically back up everything on the VM, if all of "prevent backup" settings are off? What about moving all of my PC Docs to the Docs folder, which is shared w/ my Mac?

Thanks for your help!

 

I finally got my upgrade to work by following this method. One thing that should be emphasized here is to choose Start/Shut Down/ then Restart from within XP (not by starting the VM) and immediately hold down the F2 key. Once Windows 7 installation starts, you will get a choice to Upgrade or Custom Install. Choose Custom Install.

 

Hi,

I'm a Noob, and this is my first post. I have a registered copy of Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac. I built a Windows XP Professional VM and used a Windows 7 upgrade DVD to install Windows 7 64bit in a separate VM by doing the following:

1) New Windows 7 VM from DVD or image.
2) I did not mount the DVD in the drive, and chose continue, then configure.
3) In the hardware configuration, I added a second hard drive, and attached the primary drive from my XP VM.
4) I put the upgrade DVD in the real DVD drive and then started the machine.
5) I selected custom install and formatted the primary drive. Windows said it was going to create an additional partition.
6) Installation proceded with no problems.
7) After installation, I powered the machine down and removed the XP drive.

The major feature of this method is using your XP drive to satisfy the clean upgrade installation.

--skip

 

BIOS setting form WITHIN Win XP - what do you mean?

As far as I understand the whole idea of BIOS settings, they have nothing to do with the Operating System. How can you change BIOS settings from WITHIN Windows?

 

Managed to do the 64 bit upgrade successfully as per Chijo's instructions, but needed to hold the FN key down too while rebooting (i.e., FN CTRL F12).