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Installing Windows 7 over CentOS - Easy or No?

I'm want to:

1) Install Windows 7 on a machine that currently is running CentOS. (It's been our office file server for a while, but no one wants to learn Linux, and we have no more Linux IT support person)

2) Then I want to move files from another CentOS machine to this one, preserving all of the Mac folder colors and styles that the Macs on this network have created.

(When I moved files to a Windows machine before, invalid file names and the Mac style files in each folder resulted in an error, and I had to click "skip" hundreds of times.)

Is there anything I should know? I've installed Windows before, over top of Windows, but never over another OS.

Thanks a lot for all input!

John

If you mean dual boot, take much care. Windows wants to take over the master boot record, and you risk invalidating your Linux install. If you have no Linux support at all, I don't recommend it.

Alteratively you can get VMware for Linux (check for CentOS support) and then load Windows 7 as a machine inside VMware. If VMware runs in CentOS, this will work and will be the easiest for you. It will have no impact on the CentOS physical machine as it still runs.

Newer versions of VMware have shared folder support and should be able to move files from one machine to the other. I have the inverse running (Ubuntu inside VMware on a Windows 7 Pro host) and I can see my Windows 7 host from Ubuntu. ... Thinkpads_User

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rindi

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Kenten

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Thanks, I wasn't trying to set up a dual boot, just overwrite the CentOS with Windows 7.