Has anyone done this?

My laptop has become very unstable, regularly going to that blue screen thingy so my bf decided I should re-install Windows. I have all my work backed up on USB and Dropbox just in case but from what I'm told I shouldn't lose any files anyway. What about programs though? Does anyone know if they'll be wiped?

I don't have a desktop (I hope to inherit one from some submitting next month - I was supposed to get it over a year ago though) so I'm just a bit anxious that I'm going to mess up my laptop somehow in the process of re-installing!

I think it depends on whether you're re-installing windows or repairing.

A repair in theory means that programs and documents wouldn't be wiped.
Re-install would mean you'd have to reinstall the programs, and definately make sure you have a backup of documents.

I'm basing this on XP though. I don't have any of the newer ones. Whenver I've reinstalled windows it's always wiped everything for me.

If you do a repair installation, you shouldn't lose any programs. Have you still got a restore CD that may have come with the laptop? It'll make the process easier and have all the drivers for your laptop.

Hi everyone- I don't have anything that came with the laptop - it's a Mac so I partitioned the hard drive and the Windows side occupies about 80%. I have a Windows 7 Upgrade Kit. Do you think I need something else too?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, EV, but is Window's 7 installed on it now, or is it vista (which is unstable) and you want to upgrade to 7? If it's the latter, make a recovery disk, do the repair installation of Vista and then upgrade to 7.

Hi Wally - it's actually XP that's installed at the moment. My boyfriend seems convinced that if he just upgrades to Windows 7 that should solve my instability issues - I haven't let him to it yet cos I'm not sure he knows what he's doing!! (although he claims to have done it lots of times already!) So you're saying I have to do a repair on XP and then upgrade to Windows 7? I'm not sure which CD you're talking about though? I have a Mac which has been partitioned so that it also runs Windows.

p.s I f you haven't already guessed I'm really not up on this technical stuff at all :$

oh god my hubby does that. e.g.

Me: do you know how to do multilevel modelling
him: yeah sure
Me: really
Him: (exasperated) YESSSS of course I know - give me your data
---3 months of faffing about---
Me: you don't know how to do it do you
Him: well, I would have been able to do it if the data wasn't in columns (or equally stupid excuse)

Good luck!