Here is our bottom line:
If you have a new computer that came with Vista, run the upgrade advisor, and if you don’t have significant hardware or software issues, go get Windows 7. You should DEFINETELY run a full backup of your important files before trying to upgrade. If you have Vista Ultimate or Business you can use the PC Backup Utility to do this.

If you have Windows XP, things get more complicated in a hurry. The Microsoft minimum requirements for Windows 7 are: 1 GHz CPU, 1 GB of RAM for 32 bit and 2Gb for 64 bit, DirectX 9 compatible video card with Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) capability. We think that for a decent user experience, this will really be something like this:

• CPU:Minimum: AMD Athlon XP 1600+ or newer including Athlon 64, Athlon X2, AMD Phenom and AMD Opteron.
  
  Intel Pentium 4 1.8GHz or newer including Celeron 1.8 and above Celeron D, CoreDuo, Core2Duo.
• RAM: You can never be too rich, too good looking or have too much RAM. We think 1GB is too low, especially on older hardware. Considering the relative cheapness or RAM (1 GB for as little as $40) we think 1.5 is going to be a minimum acceptable level on older computers. 2GB is better. Windows 7 will support up to 4GB in all the 32 bit versions.
• Video:Most consumer computers have integrated video cards. This means that the video sub-system is on the motherboard and shares RAM with the system. That is why more RAM is better. Most integrated video cards made in the last three years or so will meet the Windows 7 requirements. If you don’t know what type of video card you have, right-click my computer, select Manage, expand device manager and expand display adapters. (See photo) Also, this thread on the Microsoft Developer’s forum has some links to manufacturer’s pages.

If you have Windows XP you will need to perform a clean install of Windows 7. A clean install means the process of wiping out the previous (Windows XP) installation on the computer and installing a brand new operating system. The Windows 7 install media includes a migration utility to help this process along by copying your personal files to an external drive. But you will still have to re-install all your productivity programs.

We think Microsoft has gotten Windows 7 right. I feel pretty confident in saying that pretty much everyone will be using it within a couple of years. Microsoft currently plans to end support for Windows XP professional in April of 2014. The transition from the huge population of Windows XP users to the new OS over the next couple of years is going to be trying for the end users. For people like me it is the best thing to happen since the release of Windows 2000. But, Apple kicked all its users off the Classic OS back in 2002 and they haven’t exactly suffered for it.

This was a straight upgrade from Vista SP1 to Windows 7. By this I mean, that I put the Windows 7 disk in my computer running Vista and ran the upgrade. It kept all my programs and files in place. This is the only direct upgrade path Microsoft supports. You cannot upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 without doing a clean install of the operating system. This will also then require re-loading any custom drivers (if there are Windows 7 drivers available yet) software and backing up and restoring all local files.

On the one hand as a consumer advocate, this totally sucks as Vista adoption has been pretty dismal. On the other hand, as a provider of technology consulting services all I can do is prostrate myself facing Redmond and give thanks to the Great Windfall Maker, St. Steve.

Here is the machine I ran the upgrade on:
Hewlett Packard dc7800c ultra-slim desktop
Intel Core2Duo E6550 2.6GHz (32-bit)
4 GB DDR2-6400 RAM (I upgraded from 2GB for $70.00)
Intel Q35 Chipset with Integrated Video and Sound

This machine is about a year and-a-half old and is not a rocket sled by any means. But it ran Vista fine, or as fine as Vista will run anyway. The upgrade is accomplished as I said above by inserting the Windows 7 disk and running the upgrade install. I ran the Upgrade Advisor first, and I highly recommend doing this as it will tell you if you have any programs or drivers that need to be removed, replaced or upgraded. I only had to remove the HP bundled security applications and they are not available in Windows 7 flavors yet.

The upgrade was silky-smooth and took about an hour and ten minutes during which the computer rebooted three times. Yesterday I got straight to work on it and it has not had a single problem. I participated in a web-based training and entered with a bit of trepidation that the client wouldn’t work. But it worked just fine.

I also have a VPN client from my primary firewall provider, FortiNet that absolutely would not install on this Vista box, no way no how, no version. I had been going round and round with their support team for more than a week and not getting anywhere. It installed and ran on Windows 7 with no issues whatsoever. My core applications, Office 2007 and Google Chrome have also been working without a hitch.

All in all, this has been a pretty seamless and painless transition so far. More later in the week as I get a bit more time under the hood. Here is a screen shot: