I have Vista 32 bit and am looking to upgrade to the equivalevt Win 7 64 bit. I know I have to effectively clear the hard drive or at any rate let the installation program do it for me but I am uncertain as to the degree of back up I should perform as part of the process.I can back up documents and files but the issue comes whether I should back up programs, paticularly embedded flight sim add ons. I'm not sure how practical this would be and and whether this would work anyway.I would be interested to have thoughts on this please?Madair

I have Vista 32 bit and am looking to upgrade to the equivalevt Win 7 64 bit. I know I have to effectively clear the hard drive or at any rate let the installation program do it for me but I am uncertain as to the degree of back up I should perform as part of the process.I can back up documents and files but the issue comes whether I should back up programs, paticularly embedded flight sim add ons. I'm not sure how practical this would be and and whether this would work anyway.I would be interested to have thoughts on this please?Madair

I usually back up My Documents, My Pictures, and my e-mail program (Outlook) which is a .pst file. You can back up your FSX programs and addon's too such as scenery, but FSX will have to be reinstalled including your commercial addons as they write to your registry and your old registry will be wiped out with the upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit.Best regards,Jim

I usually back up My Documents, My Pictures, and my e-mail program (Outlook) which is a .pst file. You can back up your FSX programs and addon's too such as scenery, but FSX will have to be reinstalled including your commercial addons as they write to your registry and your old registry will be wiped out with the upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit.Best regards,Jim

Thanks JimI am trying to think it all through before I do it. Your advice is very welcomeRegardsmartinMadair

Thanks JimI am trying to think it all through before I do it. Your advice is very welcomeRegardsmartinMadair

I heard you! It's on everyone's mind when they upgrade to a new computer or OS. I might add that Google is your friend and I did a quick search and came up with several hits or suggestions: http://www.google.com/search?q=what+should...;rlz=1I7GGLL_en. You can ask any question you want in the Google or Bing search bar and you'll probably get a lot more educated responses than what you'll get from me or maybe others who visit THIS forum.Best regards,Jim

I just built a new Windows 7 PC. Just before I did, I backed up entire hard drive on my old PC with Norton Ghost and an external drive. I then used Ghost to transfer all of my many, many addons to the new PC using the backup. Worked like a charm.I still had to reinstall FS on the new PC, but I kept all of my addons intact.