I was reading this article over at PC world: Windows 7? Don’t Upgrade, Buy A New PC – Business Center – PC World:
Here is the very best advice for Windows XP users considering an upgrade to Windows 7: Don’t do it.
Windows 7’s biggest failing is that upgrading from XP requires reinstalling applications and moving personal data around. And who looks forward to doing that?
There are good technical reasons why Microsoft chose this path. However, for average XP users and many businesses, such a difficult upgrade makes Windows 7 a non-starter. Users that are more proficient will make the upgrade at their own peril, just make sure you have application install disks handy.
Yes, you can upgrade from XP to Windows 7, but is it really worth it?
No!
I totally agree that Microsoft really missed the boat by making it so difficult to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. I have an old XP machine I’d love to upgrade, but maybe I should just start looking at netbooks.
Do you plan on upgrading to Windows 7?
Already upgraded. Got my Windows 7 launch party pack the other day. It is running very well on 4 year old hardware.
The upgrade isn’t that difficult and I am not sure about this article. Either way I have to somehow transfer my data to a different installation. Most people have USB drives of some type, this isn’t the big issue it was 5 years ago.
I have heard the same thing about the Windows 7 upgrade. I will continue to look into it based on Elvito’s comment but I suspect I will keep my XP machines XP machines and consider Windows 7 on new machines. What was Microsoft thinking? Considering the bad press the Vista got, do they really want to make it that difficult to upgrade XP machines? This may push more of us “I am PC” users over to the Mac world.
@Kenny
I would feel comfortable talking my 71 year old mother through this upgrade over the phone. It is really no big deal and smacks of the writer of the article drinking the Apple Kool-Aid.
The only real issue would be if you cannot find your installation CD’s for your software and have a lot of DRM laden files.
I have neither of those issues and the upgrade took me about 1 1/2 hours. I had used the RC but I really don’t think that helped me with the installation at all.
I don’t question that the process isn’t difficult, it just seems like a miss to me that Microsoft didn’t make it as easy as they possibly could to encourage the upgrade. My problem with the clean install is the software that’s only contained on system restore disks. I have an HP TC1100 tablet that has some specific software for hardware features of the tablet. HP never bothered updating it for Vista, but at least i could do the upgrade to keep the software. Vista was so bad that I went back to XP, but now I won’t be able to go to Windows 7 without crippling the machine.
Like I said in the post, maybe it’s just time to shop for a netbook, it’s not that much more than the cost of the upgrade.
I learned long ago that, when it comes to Windows, it’s a good idea to keep your OS and your personal data separate. OS is on drive C, everything else important is on drive D (even my “My Documents”). Formats like this would make most upgrades fairly easy – you COULD even just wipe and reinstall, pointing everything to the correct place afterwards. Best of both worlds, I’d think.
Now if only I could afford Windows 7, or even afford to cross-license all my software and get a shiny new Mac like my lovely bride…
I have an XP pro computer that I just built and can see the upgrade to win7 will be quite…annoying. But with that said, I don’t know if Microsoft actually did anything wrong by not making it easy to upgrade. Sure there are a million XP users that might be more satisfied with the upgrade, but will be unhappy when they find out that there new operating system does not run 100% because they still have all of there old junk on there. Just think of all the programs you have installed and uninstalled that have pieces all over the windows registry. I think that is a serious issue that Windows needs to address that would work towards an OS that will remain constant after several years. Really if you want to install an OS system properly you should always do a clean install.
On a marketing standpoint, yes, they will sell more upgrades if it was easier to upgrade from PC, just don’t know if that would be good for the end user experience.
When I got my new computer I installed Windows 7 on it, and was looking for a way to migrate all my programs and files from old XP.
The solution I found ( program called Zinstall XP7) not only migrated everything, it also kept it in the old XP desktop!
So the best thing to do is have both 7 and XP in a new fast comptuer, with all old programs, but running much faster on a new powerful computer.