I have an eMachines T6003 with an AMD Athlon 64 Processor and am running the full 4gb of ram. My current operating system is Windows XP 32 bit. So I was wondering if it would be possible for me to do a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit onto my computer? Because whenever I load the install disc it says that it is not a valid Win32 application? Any help onto this would be great.
Tagged with: amd • amd athlon 64 • amd athlon 64 processor • emachines t6003 • operating system • valid win32 application • windows xp
Filed under: Clean Up Computer
You don’t need to actually WIPE the drive.
You should boot from the actual DVD like Jamfo explained, and then select "Custom (Advanced)" installation.
It will warn you that you’ll lose all your apps, but that doesn’t mean they are lost forever.
After installing Win7, run Zinstall XP7 and you get all your stuff back.
Yes, even 32bit apps running on 64bit Win7. Yes, all of them 🙂
Good luck!
of course,you can do a clean install of Windows 7.
When you say clean install, I assume you mean you want to wipe the drive clean and install Windows 7 like it was going onto a brand new empty hard drive. Assuming the hardware will support the OS, you need to boot from the installation CD.
There should be a point early on in the installation process that asks you what partition and stuff you want to load to. You should see the existing partition, and have the option to delete it and then create a new one to install 7 to.
XP is telling you the disc isn’t a valid 32bit application, because it isn’t. it’s 64 bit 😉 But if the Windows 7 disc is a full installation disc and not an upgrade, you should be able to boot from it. It is just a matter of going into setup (bios) and telling the system that the DVD/CDROM drive is the first boot device.
You can do a clean install, but it must be a TRUE clean install… that is, you’ll need to BOOT from the Windows 7 installation DVD and run the installation FROM the DVD. You won’t be able to start the installation from within your old version of Windows.
There are two main reasons you can’t do what you are trying to do:
**1) You cannot UPGRADE from a 32-bit to a 64-bit OS
**2) You cannot UPGRADE from Win XP to Win 7
If you want to do a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit, you are forced to start the installation by using the Windows 7 DVD. You would need to insert the DVD and power on the comptuer and actually boot from the DVD and not your hard drive. (Depending on your settings, you may need to change your BIOS settings in order to allow your computer to boot from a CD/DVD.)
Once the DVD starts, it will walk you through the installation process.
Now, HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART: In order to install Windows 7 64-bit on your computer, you are going to HAVE to REFORMAT your current hard drive. That means you are going to lose EVERYTHING on that hard drive. All your applications, all your music and documents… everything will be gone. Before you start this process, please make sure you back up EVERYTHING you want to save and have copies of the installation files for any programs you might want to re-install.
That is the only way you’ll be able to make the change you want from Windows XP 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit. There is no upgrade path or method of making the change that will allow you to migrate existing files and applications.
The only other hold-up you might have with this is the processor in the machine. I looked it up for you and found some information here:
http://developer.amd.com/pages/123200367.aspx
While the AMD 64-series claims to have 64-bit support, that processor is six years old and was introduced right at the beginning of the roll-out of 64-bit processors. If you read the link I sent you, AMD still refers to Microsoft’s first 64-bit OS (Windows XP 64-bit) as a BETA version… so it is very possible that the early form of the 64-bit architecture on your processor is not 100% compatible with the current specs on 64-bit processors and, therefore, may not be able to run Windows 7 64-bit.
You’ll only be able to find that out by trial-and-error, as I was not able to find a specific document that confirmed or denied whether or not Windows 7 64-bit supports that particular processor.
Hope that helps!