Just a heads-up type message...

Anyone taking a computer "in" for the upgrade, please remember to back up your files (e-mail folders, photos, documents, ect.) as copies and not as compressed formatted files.

As life goes and as "things" go at times: Some times techies ignore (stating it nicely) what the customer prefers and expresses (verbally and in writing).

Just had a friend take in a 'puter for the upgrade and it came back: Totally unlike expected.

Upgrading has options (in how it is done). But the short story is: Heck of a lot easier if the person - wanting the upgrade - has saved everything important or essential just as last accessed, etc.

My tip de jour

So when you have a backup.....external... doesn't those compress? How can you save full file types?....please explain

edit... hubby says ours are uncompressed anyway... sorry.

Good thing yours are as they are, mrsD .

I'll elaborate (in case someone else may have the same Q)...

Documents, mail boxes, contacts, pictures, etc.: Drag and drop or save as well to CD, external HD, flash drive, or similar.

Once upgraded, the machine won't "hand-shake" with compressed files; it doesn't "recognize" them any longer.

What my friend had done was asked techies to upgrade using the option to keep the files (types I mentioned) and not to over-write everything. But, the techies didn't care and ... wiped out everything.

Before taking the machine for the upgrade, however, I had saved the personal files. So all isn't lost, yet would have been a lot easier and quicker if the backups could have been used.

I hope the tip may help someone, and spare some headaches.

Thanks, Bobbi -- I've had those Windows 7 discs since October, just waiting to be installed.

I didn't even think about doing a back-up, so good thing I'm such a procrastinator!

Here is a non-computer person's hint:

If you do NOT save movies, TV shows and have a terra-gigabyte hard-drive... and you save to an external... check your settings.
They will compress as an option, but if you don't have to , DON'T.

Because we only save diddley things, hubby did NOT compress, and hence when we rescued our broken laptop with the new harddrive... and also moved things to the Win 7 new machine...this was not an issue. I vaguely remember my son saying something about "compression" ... but that sort of blew over my gray head! LOL

Twinkletoes,

A cautionary or heads-up if you do decide to upgrade eventually: You may also run into backward compatability issues, as when platforms went from XP to VISTA, meaning patches and drivers and possibly losing some software in the process.