changing from vista to windows 7

is it possible to REMOVE vista from a laptop, and put in windows 7 instead? i have a friend who wants to sell his toshiba laptop and i want to buy it, but will never get vista, and he said his computer guy was in the process of doing this. Maybe i just havent been in the "computer world" for a while, but ive never heard off this being done. and if it can be switched over will vista actually be completely removed? or is it just installing windows on top of vista?

thanks in advance if someone can help me out here

you can wipe it clean and install win 7.

even if you can just upgrade I would highly recommended a clean wipe. it rids of any hidden viruses and reformats the drive for better performance (plus tags any bad sectors).

wow, ok, thanks :) you can still wipe it clean if it was bought with vista already in it right? I just wasnt sure if it was a scam or not

I would make sure it runs win 7 first, there is a free download from Microsoft that you can run and will tell you if the machine is win7 capable. If it runs vista it probably is OK, but best to be sure.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=1b544e90-7659-4bd9-9e51-2497c146af15&displaylang=en

That is good advise. Especially with Toshiba's as they are not always 100% compatible.

That is good advise. Especially with Toshiba's as they are not always 100% compatible.

Ya been surprised more than once :)

thanks very much for the advice :)

Additional Comments:

thanks very much for the advice :)

As others have noted it is a good idea to verify compatibility which can usually be done by looking it up on the Manufactures web site.

The chances are very good and more than likely you will find that it performs better than Vista on the same hardware.

just keep in mind, if this laptop came OEM with vista (vista sticker on it), that it may not have drivers under the Windows 7 Operating system.

In most cases the you can use the vista drivers, but they don't always play well.

I would make sure that you confirm the network connections on your home/work setup.

Drivers for wireless, network adapter, and bluetooth (if you use it) under windows 7 may perform poorly if Toshiba hasn't updated them for the laptop model.

In extreme cases the driver problem could prevent an N wireless card from working with Win 7, or even make it imcompatible with the older A/B/G networks.

Not a big deal in most cases, but it sometimes means slow connections or dropping connections regularly.

Ive had lots of experience at work with XP -> Vista -> Win7 and in my experience most computers and laptops that were validated for Vista after 2008 are highly likely to be windows 7 compatible and its is also highly likely that the drivers are the same for 7 as the ones for vista ( as in same driver package ).

Having said that - prudence dictates that you not only fully validate the hardware with the above quoted Microsoft link, but back up all files prior to any upgrade process. Additionally, a clean install of Win 7 will also have a better performance level than the upgrade route.

You cannot perform a reliable upgrade XP to 7 in case anyone is wondering - you must back up and clean install / restore files.

...You cannot perform a reliable upgrade XP to 7 in case anyone is wondering - you must back up and clean install / restore files.

You are right, you can't go directly from XP to 7.

But you can go from XP to Vista, then Vista to 7 and retain everything.

Backing up before starting is always a good idea.

thanks you for all the feedback and suggestions! greatly appreciated, i finally have my laptop, and was able to intall windows 7. And it is working great :) i figured id just let everyone know who reponded to this that their posts helped very much.

Glad to hear you got the laptop upgraded. For future reference, Microsoft has a tool called the Windows Upgrade Advisor that runs on your system and tells you what OS you can upgrade too. As for drivers, Vista and Windows 7 drivers are usually the same code. Rarely in my time as a tech heve I had issues between Vista and Win7 drivers. If you have any other issues with the laptop I'd be glad to offer my services as a certified tech.

That's great news Angel!

One thing about backups - the backup program in Windows 7 can't read the backups made with Windows XP or Vista, but you can download a utility from Microsoft that will allow you to read them.