Re-Install of windows 7

[chris635]

Hey Shane,

       My aunt is a teacher. For her work she uses a dell. It came with windows 7 home premium 64 bit (she cant remember if it came with service pack 1 or not). It needs maintenance so bad, it crash's all the time. I was thinking about just doing a reinstall, as she also wants to upgrade to 0ffice 2010. Two problems however.

1. She has a ton of files and not all stored in central locations.
2. Since it was store bought, there is no disk for re-install, just the usual partition for dells reinstall.

   What is the best way to handle this? I would like to reinstall with a windows 7 home premium 64 bit iso if I can, that way I can avoid the bundled crap. Where would be the best place to get an iso windows 7 file? 

The amount of word document files she has is unbelievable man, it is got to be thousands (she is a teacher after all). Whats the best way to back them up.

Also she uses outlook and doesn't want to loose all of her emails. What is the best way to back them up for use in outlook 2010?


Chris

[Shane]

You get get a iso of Windows 7 with SP1 here
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/w/microsoft_os/3316.2-1-microsoft-windows-7-official-iso-download-links-digital-river.aspx

When you do the install make sure NOT to format the drive. Windows setup (When you boot off the CD) will show there is Windows already and that it will move everything to Windows.old, where you can copy her files from after install is done. But make a backup not matter what.

Also introduce her to Librea Office (I put it on all my customers systems)
http://www.libreoffice.org

It is a totally free office program that handles ALL of Micrososfts documents. Get her use to using it and she will never have to pay for office again

Also I dumbed outlook a LONG time ago and use thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

It can pull all the outlook files over. But if she sticks without look just backup her pst file, thats where all the emails are kept.

Also inform her that every hard drive will die. That means when hers does every single file she has goes with it, that means that crazy amount of word docs.

Get her a external drive, 2 or more so she can rotate them and use a free backup program
http://www.fbackup.com/

To copy the files to the external and get into the habit of backups

Shane