Tips on migrating to x64?

[Zhivago]

I am planning on migrating from Vista 32 to Vista 64, and am looking for any tips.
I have my C drive with quite a few programs (and games with all the mods and patches that go with them) that would be a pain to re-install/download them - I can't imagine the process taking less than an entire weekend.

One thing I do have on my side is a huge amount of reserve disk space on a 1TB external. My idea is to simply copy a huge portion of my C:/program files folder onto the external, and also the accompanying registry keys from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Then of course, after the new OS is running, it should just be a matter of copying back over the programs/games and adding back in the saved reg keys. Has anyone ever tried this before and did it work well?

Finally, if anyone knows good software that can do what I am describing in a less painful way, then please do tell.

[jolle]

Cant say if that works or not, but I generally do a OS partition, with Vista I went with 60Gb as the 30 i tried at first filled up pretty fast.
And just dont install any apps on that drive, except stuff like the AV, CPU and GPU monitoring tools and smaller stuff I´d replace in a OS reformat in any case.

And most programs and games seems to still work efter a reinstall.
Most my games are on steam, so I just reinstall steam in the same dir as it was before, and it already has all the games and such in it. (as it´s on a separate drive, and isnt formatet).
and the stuff that dont work I just re-install.

[ViN86]

To be honest, I would just bite the bullet and re-install the programs.

Also, I don't know if moving from 32-bit to 64-bit will be as simple as just copying registry keys. Can't guarantee all the references used by the program will be in the same place in the 64-bit OS as they were in the 32-bit OS.

[hokeyplyr48]

tbh theres no way to really migrate to a different architecture OS.

You backup, format, reinstall. Its always better to do a reinstall anyway because you get rid of all the crap that accumulates.

It's really not that bad, I do it every couple of months to keep things fresh/snappy.

[Lfctony]

It just took an hour for me to re-install the system and do all the tweaks (disable UAC, enable quicklaunch, stop indexing etc etc.) Then I installed the basic stuff (codec packs, Live mail, drivers, AV) and I will install things as I go... It doesn't take that long. The biggest pain in the ass is my browser settings. I just use a backup wizard for that now. It restores everything as it was...

[nekrosoft13]

wow you only have like 1 program installed?

for me to get my PC back to normal after reinstall it would take at least couple days

184 apps/games installed now

[crainger]

Turn off indexing? You like a slow PC? Leave it on, let it index over night and you'll be surprised how it can speed things up.

[Zhivago]

wow you only have like 1 program installed?

for me to get my PC back to normal after reinstall it would take at least couple days

184 apps/games installed now

This.
I don't have 184, but it would take a weekend to get all of my games/apps back.
I will probably just bite the bullet, it's too bad there isn't some slick software to migrate using reserve disk space (it should be possible in theory I think).

[Thunderbolt56]

You backup, format, reinstall.



Hear, hear! Windows-bloat is the tool of the antichrist. Get rid of it whenever you can.