Sounds like you have 3 basic problems: 1) You want to run and use your XP partition, while you are preparing windows 7 to run all your software. 2) You want to install your ``tons of'' software, from XP, on windows 7 along with, I suspect, various shortcuts, batch files, menus, settings that you created in XP.  3) I suspect you want to backup your XP AND windows 7 partitions, in case anything goes wrong.

So - start with 3 - make an image backup of XP, and put  it on some external or internal backup drive. Macrium Reflect or Paragon Backup both provide free image software for this. I highly recommend you also create bootable CD that allows you to run partitioning and/or backup software, and to access your partitions. Again, Macrium or paragon provide such CDs. They either use the win PE or a linux OS to accomplish this. By the way - paragon also sells ``adaptive restore'' software that allow you to install an old windows OS on a newer PC.

Then do 1) I suspect your disk has just one C: partition. Use a partition tool, such as Easeus partition Master (its free), to resize C:,create and format a second partition on your disk, and make the new partition active. By the way, this tool will also let you hide or change the drive letters of partitions, other than the bootable C: drive.

Now install windows 7 on the new partition, which it will see as C: Then, I recommend doing an image backup of win 7. It will be invaluable to cleanly recover from any serious future OS trouble.

Your windows 7 boot menu, should now allow you to boot to either 7 or XP. Whichever one you choose, will become drive c: for that session. If there are any problems, use a free tool such as Easy BCD (http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1) to edit the boot menu, as needed. Once setup, dual booting is quite painless.

Now you can do 2) the painful, way: Boot into 7 and slowly install all the tons of applications, shorcuts, etc. from XP to 7. I always keep all my setup files for this purpose, and there are tools that save installation info. for groups of applications, so future installs will be less painful.

If you want, you can try the shorter upgrade path from XP to vista to 7 -- on the XP partition. If it works, you simply use a partition manager to switch the former XP drive to be the active one.

If anything goes wrong, you are covered: You have a clean backup of win 7, and one of XP. And if your PC does not boot, you can boot from a CD and restore either backup, set one of the partitions as active, etc.

i've thought about adding letters.. it just seems like if it's not in your top 9 items, you are better off filtering the results by typing more rather than having to locate the 15th result.

-mouser (October 13, 2010, 09:46 AM)

Ive found it a lot easier to pick, say, a fifteenth option. For instance, if I want to go to one of the many directories I've called, tmp.

This is doubtless a newbie question but: I want to type a command with arguments into FARR's search line, and have it executed as if I typed this command in the windows Run dialogue box.  How do I do it?
     I dont want to have to use ++ to add arguments to my command, wait for the command to show up in the results box, and then hit, for instance, ctrl-3. I just want to type the command, hit <ENTER> and have it run. Must I use the noresults alias for this, or how would I create a Run alias to do it?
     I also wonder, how to include the directories in the windows %PATH% variable in FARRS directories to search? Since %PATH% includes a list of different directories, must I enter each of these directories separately in FARRs directories to search? I would like FARR to behave just like the Run command - search all directories in the %PATH% variable for the command, and then execute the command. I do not want the command displayed first in the results list.