Point 1 – Make sure you have a good backup of your system & files if you are using an existing machine.

Point 2 – Check that you really have done point 1.

The machine I selected to test Windows 7 on was a five year old AMD system with 2Gb of ram, 512Mb graphics card plus onboard network and sound.  It had been happily running Windows XP until that time.

It should be noted that you cannot upgrade from XP to Windows 7 directly as you can Vista so you will have to re-install all your programs and you will have to use the backup made.

Before you start the installation it is worthwhile downloading the free Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, even more important is believing what it says when you install and run it.

If the advisor says you will have a problem with your sound card driver then you will have a problem with the sound card.

I thought surely not, but it was right and I had a great deal of difficulty getting it to work, I did eventually manage to get it to work after a number of hours but it cut out sometimes and would not work again until the machine was rebooted.

To stop this hassle I purchased another sound card and I disabled the onboard one in the BIOS (my motherboard is a K8V-MX model).

These are the steps I went through for the installation.

First I put in the Windows 7 Professional DVD and booted up from it at 5:50pm.

I selected the Custom (Advanced) installation.

I deleted my existing hard drive partition and Windows created TWO (yes TWO) new partitions, one partition it created was a system reserved partition of 100Mb in size, this does not have a drive letter associated when you eventually have Windows 7 installed.

I guess this partition contains the recovery console files but there seems to be little information on the Microsoft sites regarding this.

The other partition was of the rest of the available disk space.

The next thing to happen is the copying and expanding of Windows files.

The PC reboots ( you can leave the DVD in ).

It now updates the registry settings, starts services and then alters the screen resolution.

The PC reboots again.

It advises that it is starting Windows.

Next it advises that “setup is preparing for first use” and that it is checking video performance.

The next stage asks that you type in a new user name and also a password ( I skipped the password ).

I now typed in the product key.

Now it asks you to set up Windows updates, you have three options 1 – Install updates, keep Microsoft informed also help Microsoft improve Windows, 2 – Install important updates only or option 3 – Ask me later ( the option I chose )

You have to set your location, date and time.

You then have to specify your computer environment 1 – Home Network “Trusted”, 2 – Work Network “Trusted” or 3 – Public Network “Untrusted”

It is then connecting & applying settings followed by a Welcome and a preparing desktop message.

At 6:19pm the desktop appeared and could be used, just short of thirty minutes from running up the install DVD, this seemed very quick to me.

I very quickly liked the look of Windows 7.

The issues I initially faced with were related to the sound and also the USB Winfast PalmTop TV tuner I had installed.

I would say that the things Microsoft are not so good at are music / video media even when I replaced the sound card and got the right installation files for the Winfast device.

The Windows Media Center struggled to run the TV tuner I had, insufficient bit rate, blocky display, screen not updating, I switched over to the Winfast PVR2 application and the TV picture displayed great with no issues at all.

Windows Live Movie Maker failed to display my MOV video files created by my digital camera, Windows Media Player would play music but struggled to display a  picture of the MOV files but did play the sound of the videos.

I loaded on the non-Microsoft VLC Media Player and was able to both listen to music and play the MOV files without issue.

Microsoft Office 2007 worked without issue and I liked the new programs that came with Windows for example Paint, the free games, the Snipping Tool and also the desktop gadgets.

The touch screen support will also be of increasing benefit over the years as they become more common.

Windows 7 has a “classy” feel about it and has some programs under the hood that I like for example the Reliability Monitor (which tracks problems over time) and the PSR (Problem Steps Recorder – creates a zip file for sending that shows the steps that lead up to a problem you are having) which I am sure will be big help in the coming years.

Enjoy