A lot! As with all life changes, a good bit of planning goes a long way to ensure a smooth transition.

Hardware Compatibility

You’ll definitely want to make sure that your current hardware is compatible with Windows 7. That’s where the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor comes in handy. Once you download and run the Upgrade Advisor, it will do a scan of your PC, its hardware, programs, etc. The scan will generate a report detailing any known compatibility problems. As well as suggestions to avoid compatibility problems.

Back Up, Back Up, and Back Up

You should already be doing this even if you aren’t migrating to a new operating system! OK, enough with the guilt trip. If you are using a third-party back up, go to the web site and double check that it will be compatible with Windows 7. If you are relying on XP’s Backup Utility, we are hoping that the Windows NT Backup Restore Utility that was created for XP to Vista configurations will work with XP to 7, or at least hoping that Windows will adapt the utility to work with the new operating system.

Custom Installs and Multiboot Configurations

If you are currently running Windows XP, you won’t be able to do an “in-place” install to Windows 7. This means you can’t simply upgrade and keep all of your settings and applications in place. Microsoft describes a custom installation as:

“A custom (clean) installation gives you the option to either completely replace your current operating system or install Windows on a specific drive or partition that you select. You can also perform a custom installation if your computer does not have an operating system, or if you want to set up a multiboot system on your computer.”

A multiboot configuration involves temporarily running both XP and 7 on your PC. This way you can boot up in XP and check your settings for a particular program or app and then reboot in 7 to replicate those settings. This way you can migrate all of your documents, programs, and applications in an organized fashion, ensuring that you don’t lose any of your settings.

Get It Together

We are fans of the boy scouts and their motto: Be Prepared! In preparation for your move to Windows 7, collect all your software CDs and a list of web sites where you can download any necessary updates to software or applications. Hopefully you are incredibly organized and already have the discs and user manuals in a neatly labeled folder…

Mental Preparations

Windows 7 is a big change from XP so you may want to take a peek at some of its distinctions over XP. You can get an advance look at the user interface features on the Windows 7 site that has dozens of videos and write ups to get acquainted with the basics.