Prepare Phone and iTunes for Win7 clean install.

[aerodoc]

I would like to do a clean install and format the hard drive, rather than upgrade from Vista on my HTPC. My biggest challenge will be iTunes and the phone. I think it will mostly go smooth, but thought I would ask just in case.

- Apps. I don't have all apps on my phone. Some are on the computer. Since these will get wiped, can I/should I first find their location and copy them to a seperate partition, then added back in the iTunes folder after the Win7 install?

- Backups. I have 2 phones. I suppose if I sync both first, I will have all the data I need. I will lose my iphone backups, but after the reinstall of iTunes, I suppose it will automatically create new backups?

- Playlists. I heard that smart playlists are broken in 3.1+ (or something like this). Should I somehow try to migrate the playlists since they may not be properly contained on the phone?

- Computer Authorization. I don't know if its a big deal, but I guess I will need to reauthorize the computer, which will lose one of the authorizations.

- Other. Anything else to consider?

Other than this, since it is a HTPC it should be pretty easy. I only have a handful of programs installed on it and all of the media is in a seperate partition. Any time I do a full wipe of the OS, it always makes me a little nervous I will miss something.

 

[wowipod]

You should back up apps, music, ringtones etc onto an external disk and then put them back onto the PC when the install is complete.

De-authorize your PC before you wipe it.

You know where iTunes keeps the back-ups don't you? Cause you'll want a copy of those too.

 

[Night Spring]

Start iTunes by holding down shift while clicking on the iTunes shortcut. This should bring up a dialog box asking you to chose a library or create a new library. Click "choose library." That should open up the folder containing your iTunes library. Copy everything in that folder to another location. Make a note of the path to this folder.

After you install Windows 7, copy back the iTunes library folder, recreating the exact path you had before. Then install iTunes, do the shift-click to start iTunes, select "choose library," and point it to the library folder you just copied. You should now have your old iTunes back as if you'd never wiped it, with all your playlists and everything else intact.

Oh, and for this to work, you also need to put your music files in the exact same path they were in before.

Oh, and on my computer, the apps are in a subfolder of my main iTunes folder, called "Mobile Applications." But you can right-click on them in iTunes and do "get info" to see their location on your computer.