UPGRADING TO WINDOWS 7
A personal experience by Phil Ball of the PCS

I’ve done many Windows upgrades starting from upgrading a new Windows 95 PC to Windows 98. Each time a new Windows comes out, there is a new batch of scare stories about the awful experiences others have had. However, I believe that simply following the directions will avoid most if not all of the problems.

I just upgraded my own Compaq (HP) Vista machine last night and it was a piece of cake. It needed input from me for awhile but then told me to take a break and just leave it alone while it spent hours getting the upgrade completed. I knew this would happen and so I'd planned this for a night when I had other things to do. I watched some TV while occasionally checking on it during commercial breaks. Finally, about 2.5 hours later, it put up a final message saying it was done.

Not only did the whole thing go smoothly but I had heavily modified Vista so it looked a lot like Classic Windows (My XP desktop looks like that, too). I had turned off all the bells and whistles because I like the simple look. My point is that most of my personal settings were reproduced by the upgrade process such that Win7 looked very much like its predecessor after it was installed. I didn't have to do much tweaking to get it just the way I want; it was already done. All the little things it didn't do were minor and easily fixed in Win7. So far as I can tell, all my programs that I use regularly made it okay and work fine on Win7, as expected. If something doesn't work, I haven't found it, yet so it can't be very important.

My first impressions range from okay (just like Vista) to great (that's much better)! I tend to think that Win7 is what Vista always should have been. I have no thought of reverting back to Vista.

Now, the fine print. I'd read up on this upgrade and while most installers were like me and had no problems, there were enough problems to make me take precautions.

First, I used the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. This will alert you to potential problems with Windows 7. It will check software, your computer and peripherals. If you're going to have compatibility problems, it's better to know beforehand. It is a long ugly URL so Go to www.Microsoft.com and search for “Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.” (Ed. note: Go here.) Since my Vista machine is less than a year old, it found only few minor problems, easily handled.

Then I ran maintenance on the Vista machine, including defragmentation. I figured if I started the upgrade with a clean, well-running machine, there would be fewer problems for the Win7 installation to deal with.

Then I used my backup software (Acronis) to backup my entire Vista hard drive to an external hard drive, just in case. That way, if the installation got messed up, I’d simply recover the fine-running version of Vista I’d had.

Ready to take the plunge, with Windows Vista running, I put in the upgrade CD and sat back to watch. It asked me the usual questions about language and location and then objected to my AVG antivirus. I’d anticipated this but forgotten to uninstall it. I was totally disconnected from the Internet (wireless off and ethernet unplugged), so I simply uninstalled AVG as well as Zone Alarm firewall, planning to download and reinstall fresh versions after the upgrade.

I started up the installation and it went smooth as silk. It did take hours but it was so nice to not have to sit there and watch the progress bar creep imperceptibly across the screen like I've had to do with installations of older versions of Windows. They had the nasty habit of grinding away for awhile while I slowly nodded off only to awaken and wonder how long it had been waiting for me to tell it what language I speak while it just sat there, idle, doing nothing.

To make a clean upgrade over an existing Vista, you should do the following:

1. Run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor.
2. Perform maintenance on Vista for a clean machine. Defragmentation is a must.
3. Back up all important data, just in case.
4. Put in the disc with Vista running, answer a few questions, and go watch a movie.

As insurance, you should be doing backups, anyway but it is most critical when you change the operating system (Windows) because some minor little problem could cause you to lose all your data which could be catastrophic. It is your decision; how would you feel if you lost all your data and photos and other personal stuff like emails and address books? If the loss would be minor, then feel free to chance it since the odds are with you, anyway. But what if?

If you need an external hard drive for the backup, check BestBuy, OfficeMax, and Staples for who has the best sale price on external hard drives this week. Acronis makes the backup job a snap. Just start it with a few directions. Once done, simply unplug it and set the hard drive aside some place safe.

If you have a fairly fresh version of Vista, this upgrade should go cleanly and easily if you just prepare your PC first. If it has been having problems, then I would suggest doing a clean install which involves formatting your hard drive and installing a fresh version of Windows that isn’t messed up with years of trash and junk. If all this sounds just too hard, then maybe it is time for a new computer with Windows 7 already installed.

Upgrades from Vista to Win7 are easy. I wonder why Microsoft made upgrades from other versions so difficult?