Classic Micro Systems

If you're a PC user, you are about to get a major upgrade as Windows 7 will officially launch on October 22, 2009, but as of October 15th we can ship Windows 7 systems! This new operating system has created a lot of buz in the industry and has gotten great reviews and we've been impressed having tested it for 2 months now!

Here's the latest you need to know:

• If you're happy with Windows XP, we still have product available on new desktops for the forseable future, likely for about 6 months after Windows 7 ships. Some vendors of branded laptops still offer notebooks with a downgrade option to XP.
• If your applications are NOT compatible with Windows Vista, they will NOT be compatible with Windows 7.
• If you are using Vista and are happy, you'll be extremely happy with Windows 7 as it runs faster, uses less resources, and should be more stable overall. The look and feel is similar to Vista but improved in many small ways.
• As of October 2009, we recommend either sticking with XP Pro or waiting for Windows 7 systems (available now).
• You can upgrade Vista "in-place" if you took advantage of the July upgrade promo we recommended great. There could be other promotions in the future if you missed out.
• More and more systems will be moving to 64-bit -- this allows greater memory addressing (above 4gb) -- but older products that require drivers (must be 64-bit) and older applications (DOS or older Windows) may be incompatible. We recommend businesses stick with 32-bit for now but this is something to evaluate.

Our take on Windows 7:

We have used Windows 7 beta and now Windows 7 RC1 in our lab off and on for several months and have found it to be more responsive, faster starting, faster shutting down, and many new small usability improvements. Rather than focusing on adding a lot of new features, Microsoft has worked on tuning Vista and we think the results will be a very stable, long-lasting platform. Based on this early information, we plan on recommending and moving all Vista customers forward to Windows 7 soon after it's launch.

Businesses generally don't like to run mixed environments, so if you're happy with Windows XP, we recommend that you keep buying it for the remainder of 2009. But XP is now over 6 years old and support will eventually end -- eventually you should move forward. We can help you evaluate your application compatibility and determine a strategy for moving forward.

Check our XP End Of Life pages and What's New Promotion pages for more news about XP and Windows 7 promotions.

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Microsoft

Generally in-place upgrades are not recommended and not available if you are moving from XP to Win7. However, if your system is running Vista, you may do an in-place upgrade. We have done this in our lab with the final Win7 build and here's what you need to know so far:

• Download and run Microsoft's Windows 7 Compatibility Test
• We recommend making an image backup of your hard drive using Acronis True Image
• Update any out-of-date drivers for Chipset, Audio, Video
• It may also be beneficial to update system BIOS
• Run the in-place upgrade

Re-installation of any applications that were removed due to incompatibility may be required.

We've run into a few potentially non-compatible applications. These should be removed prior to any update.

• Acronis True Image (if not current versions)
• SuperAntiSpyware (causes BSOD after updates if left installed)

In general, be cautious with backup, anti-virus, or anti-spyware applications.