You can determine almost all those specifications on your Windows XP system by looking at the System Properties window, which you can get by right clicking on “My Computer” and clicking on the Properties item from the pop-up window or by clicking on the Start Menu and then clicking on Run and then type “sysdm.cpl” and hit enter or click the Ok button.

So for us the minimum requirements were not an issue at all–all the machines we were using already exceeded these requirements.

You do need to determine whether your machines are 32-bit or 64-bit in order to purchase the correct version of Windows 7.  Most likely they are 32-bit if they are running Windows XP.  Again you can determine this from the System Properties Window.  To open this again, right click on “My Computer” (either via clicking on the Start Menu and looking in the right column, or if it is listed on the desktop) and click on the “Properties” item from the pop-up menu.  Click on the “General” tab if it is not automatically selected:

If under “System:” it says “Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version <Year>” then it is a 32-bit machine.  If it says “Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version <Year>” then it is a 64-bit machine.

We are a not-for-profit and qualify for Microsoft donations through techsoup.org so that is where we get all our Microsoft software at a great discount.  If you just need to purchase a copy you can buy it at amazon.com here: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64bit (OEM) System Builder DVD 1 Pack (New Packaging).Step 4a: Download Windows 7 (if you used Techsoup).  If you received Windows 7 as a donation then you’ll need to download the ISO image.  Login to your Microsoft Live account here.  The problem is that there’s a ton of different versions:

It turns out that the K, KN, and N are languages/market versions: K and KN for Korean, and N for the European market.  The iso file is 2.4 GB:

The Windows 7 Install File is a 2.4 GB iso Image

Step 4b: Create a Bootable Medium.

The reason I say “medium” is because you can create a DVD or a USB drive.  For creating a DVD I use the Apple Disk Utility to burn the iso image that I downloaded from Techsoup to a DVD.  This was great until I discovered that all of our lab computers only have only CD drives.  I then needed to make bootable USB drives from the iso file.  Microsoft has created a utility for doing this on a PC and you can read all about it and download the software at the following link: Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool.  Here I am creating a bootable USB Drive with a 4 GB USB Stick:

Creating a bootable USB Windows 7 Installer Drive

Step 4: Installing Windows 7.

Unfortunately you cannot “upgrade” a Windows XP installation to Windows 7–you must do a fresh install of Windows 7.  Check out the upgrade paths on the Windows website here.  If you try to upgrade Windows XP to Windows 7 you will get this message:

Compatibility Report: You can’t directly upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7

Step 5: Boot off your USB Installer you created in Step 4b.

I’ve found that if you don’t have the USB drive in the computer when you power it up it (the bios) won’t access it or offer it as a boot option.  On our Dell machines you must press the F12 key while it is booting to have it give you the option to boot off a USB drive.  Scroll down to “USB Device” using the arrow keys and press Enter.

Dell Boot Device Menu

This is what you’ll see if the installer successfully loads from the USB drive:

You’ll then see the Windows logo appear via animation:

Windows Logo shows up

Step 6: Pick the language, time and currency format, and keyboard type from the drop-down menus.

First Windows 7 Setup Window

Step 7: Pick the installation type.

Since you are upgrading from Windows XP you must pick the Custom (Advanced) option.

Installation type choices: Upgrade or Custom (pick Custom)

Step 8: Delete the old XP partitions.

If there are more than one partitions (especially if you didn’t specifically create the partition) then delete them all.  There may be a small (recovery) partition and then another main partition.  Click on “Drive options (advanced)” to show the options to delete partitions:

Click on “Drive options (advanced)” so you can delete partitions

Then a hidden menu will show up.  Click “Delete” to delete the selected partition.  It doesn’t matter which one you delete first but delete them both.

Click “Delete” to delete the selected/highlighted partition

After you click delete you’ll get a warning, like below.  Click ok.

Click the “Ok” button to verify that you really want to delete the partition

Repeat these steps above for all the partitions until there is only one, Disk 0 (zero).

Step 9: Create a new partition of the entire hard drive.

Click the “New” link.  It will then suggest a size of the entire drive, click Apply:

Click the “Apply” button to create the one single full-size drive partition

After you click apply a window will pop up asking for permission to create an additional partition for Windows, click ok:

Windows is asking for permission to create a little recovery drive partition, click the “Ok” button

Step 10: Install Windows 7.

Click “Next” to do ahead and install Windows 7 on the larger of the two partitions (the “Primary” type partition, which should be selected by default):

Click the “Next” button to install to the Primary partition

Step 11: Wait for Windows 7 to install.

You’ll see a progress bar like this:

Windows 7 Installer Progress window

Step 12: Set up your new Windows 7 installation Part 1.

Choose the administrator’s username and the computer’s name.  The username will be the main “administrator” account on the machine.  In Windows 7 they don’t have an “administrator” user account like they did in XP so name this accordingly.  Pick the machine name as well–this will be the machine name that shows up in the network list of machines.

Enter the administrator username and the machine/computer name

Choose a password for the administrative account and a hint if you want to leave a hint of the password (I’d recommend not):

Set the administrator’s password

Step 13: Set up your new Windows 7 installation Part 2.

Select whether you want recommended settings, important updates only, or Ask me later.  I’d recommend using the first choice, “Use recommended settings.”

Choose how you want the settings set

Step 14: Set the time zone, date, and time.

You probably will only need to set the time zone because the bios was keeping the time .

Pick the time zone, date, and time (if necessary)

Step 15: Choose the network type.

Choose whether you are setting up the machine to run at Home, at Work, or on a Public Network.

Choose the network location type: Home, Work, or Public

You’ll then see this screen:

Windows 7 Installation, Last step: Preparing your desktop…

Here’s the newly installed Windows 7 desktop:

Freshly Installed Windows 7 Desktop

Step 16: Run Windows Update.

Microsoft no longer calls it “Automatic Updates,” it’s now “Windows Updates” and can be found in the control panel.  The easiest way is to open the control panel and then type “Windows Update” in the top right search window:

Search for “Windows Update” in the Windows 7 control panel

Run Windows Update until you are tired.  Now you’ve installed Windows 7.