How to Upgrate to Windows 7 Smoothly?

Upgrade Windows 7 smoothly with proper set of hardware configuration.


Microsoft’s latest operating system is quite demanding as far as hardware configuration is concerned. It needs fast processor and lots of free available space, without with it may freeze during booting or may not install at all.


You can take assistance of Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see whether your system meets the minimum requirements. Get it downloaded from the official Microsoft website. You need following hardware for Windows 7 installation :

a) 1 GHZ or faster 32 bit or 64 bit processor
b) 1 GB RAM (32 bit)/2 GB RAM (64 bit)
c) 16 GB (32 bit) or 20 GB (64 bit) available free space.
d) DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

From above, you can easily decide which version of the Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) your system processor can support. And also the virualization mode is available on your system or not. This allows you to run Windows XP software in Windows 7 ‘Compatibility mode’.
Windows 7 can be downloaded from Microsoft’s own e-store or from a DVD. After downloading Windows 7 you can create a bootable USB drive. You can follow step-by-step instructions how to create a bootable USB drive. You can also make use of your friend’s external DVD drive.

Always follow the clean install for Windows 7. Take a back up of all your data to CD’s or DVD’s. In most simple way you can take a disk image of your XP machine.

However you can make use of Macrium Reflect and DriveImageXML software to take back up of your computer. This software runs on XP and creates an image of your hard drive on CD’s or DVD’s.

The Windows version which are available in different prices are – Windows 7 Home Premium ($120), Windows 7 Professional ($200) and Ultimate ($220). These are the prices as of July 2009. The 32-bit and 64-bit versions are included. For step-by-step instructions how to perform the upgrade you can visit Microsoft’s step-by-step Windows 7 Upgrade and Migration site.

After the complete installation of the OS and all application software, check if all your XP software will run on Windows 7. If any software does not run, enter the ‘compatibility mode’ by right clicking on the program icon and select ‘Properties’, then click ‘Compatibility’ tab. Next check the ‘Run this program in compatibility mode’ box. In the drop-down list, choose Windows XP. Remember your processor has to support virtualization mode as outlined in step 1.

If your PC can’t run in ‘compatibility mode’ you can install free virtualization software on Windows 7, such as Sun’s VirtualBox.