One Family’s Upgrade to Windows 7, Part One

Andrew Cunningham | Nov 29, 2009 | Comments

Tip: Click here to run a free scan for common PC errors

My Sister

Hardware: Acer Aspire 5517 laptop
1.6 GHz single-core AMD Athlon processor
ATI Radeon 3200 integrated graphics
2GB RAM
250GB hard drive

Primary use: Web browsing, music downloading and playing, movie watching, Microsoft Office work, keeping track of finances

Notes: This laptop was a relatively recent acquisition, and while it has some relatively modern hardware (the quite passable Radeon 3200 integrated graphics solution, the 2GB of RAM, the large hard drive) it was also very cheap (hence the slow-ish single-core processor).

The Good: Since this is a new and still-supported laptop model, I wasn’t worried about drivers. What I was worried about was the Quicken 2001 Basic software that she insists on using to keep track of her finances. Of course, said finances are usually too tight to actually pay for a new version…

I was almost sure this program wouldn’t install or run – back in 2001, compatibility with Windows XP was still sometimes uncertain – but, much to my surprise, it installed and ran without a single compatibility warning. I didn’t have to adjust the UAC settings or anything. I wondered how many more times I would get so lucky.

The Bad: Still not much to report here. The single-core processor limits somewhat this computer’s ability to multitask, but with Windows 7 having enough RAM and a roomy hard drive is more important to performance overall.

Continue Reading This Post:1234

Subscribe To RSS Feed Updates

('DiggThis’)

Leave A Comment: Comments

Filed Under: Discussion • Misc

Tags: • • •

Need Windows 7 Help? Click Here
Next Post: »»
Prev Post: »»

About the Author: Andrew Cunningham is a rarity - an IT professional with a liberal arts degree. Please don't hold that against him. When he's not supporting the faculty and staff of Kenyon College, he's writing about games, music and movies at his other blog, Charge Shot!!!

  • SoStupid
    "Those suckers that bought Vista Ultimate, myself included, are screwed," said yet another commenter. "There isn't a chance in hell that I am paying $219 for what should really be Vista SP2. We were promised 'extras' which we never got, now we are being excluded from the pre-order special. Anyway even at $49, it is still too much to pay."

    The extras that commenter mentioned refer to "Ultimate Extras," one of the main features Microsoft cited in the months leading up to the 2007 release of Vista Ultimate to distinguish the operating system from its lower-priced siblings. According to Microsoft's marketing, Extras were to be "cutting-edge programs, innovative services and unique publications" that would be regularly offered only to users of Vista's highest-priced edition.

    But users soon began belittling the paltry number of add-ons Microsoft released and the company's leisurely pace at providing them. Just five months after Vista was launched, critics started to complain.

    Earlier this year, Microsoft dumped the feature, saying that it would instead focus on existing features in Windows 7 rather than again promise extras.

    The furor over Vista Ultimate has even reached analysts' ranks. In May, Michael Cherry of Directions on Microsoft urged Microsoft to give Vista Ultimate owners a free upgrade to Windows 7. "It would buy them a lot of good will, and I don't think it would cost them much," Cherry said at the time.

    Some of the commenters in the latest Computerworld stories about Windows 7 echoed Cherry.

    "I am running Vista Ultimate and feel ripped off by Microsoft because ... [we] never received the extras we paid good money to get," said "Hellfire" in a long comment. "The very least that they should do is offer a heavily-discounted upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate to those that have lost money by purchasing Vista Ultimate."

    check google for source
  • Jason
    Good article, sounds just like upgrades that many of us do on our own family's machines. And, like your experience, most of my friend & family's computers are built using hand-me-down parts everytime I go through a hardware upgrade, so I can relate completely.

    As weird as this sounds, I have come to expect almost no issues when upgrading a PC to WIndows 7, no matter what the setup.
  • DanTG
    Great job, and frankly I'm surprised the HTPC went well. Good luck with the next 3!

    I personally found the most horrible part of the upgrade to be not the installation itself, but the actual reinstalling apps and restoring data and whatnot.

    I tried Easy Transfer, and that did nothing good for me - I still spent the entire weekend just reinstalling my laptop.

    I still had my "general purpose" PC and daugher's laptop to upgrade. So I found a life-saving app which actually solves this "clean install" problem once and for all. It's called Zinstall.

    It worked for me upgrading from one XP Home 32 bit and one XP Pro 32 bit, both to Windows 7 Professional.

    Would be very interested in your experience (if you had any) with Zinstall.
  • Sounds like so far so good.

    My experience was my new core i7 had a few problems which turned out to be a dodgy video card which once replaced with another GTX 275 but from a different manufacturer runs fine. This is my main machine for web, photos, video and flight sim.

    second machine is a core 2 duo 3 Ghz which I kept when I upgraded to the i7. Windows 7 went on without a hitch, no driver issues no nothing. This machine is hooked up to a weather station, runs a SBS 1 virtual radar and jammed full of photos and videos and serves as a NAS drive.

    Finally my five month old Toshiba laptop had no issues when I put windows 7 on with the upgrade disk from Toshiba. Only driver I had to hunt around for was the bluetooth driver.

    Dad's computer is a similar home made core i7 which also had a video card problem, again this was sorted out.

    However the one that caused the most problems was the computer that is connected to the tv in the lounge. Although it is a dual core, the on board video was up to the task for general use, but playing dvds and blurays was pushing it, so after much messing around a stand alone video card was put in and a network cable was put through the roof as wireless reception was patchy.

    So everything is now windows 7 and vista is banished from the house.
blog comments powered by Disqus