So we’ve been talking about Windows 7, and how it can be a game changer for business.  And you, realizing that Windows XP is about 8 years old, are considering the change. You skipped Vista because you heard so many not-so-great-things about it, but early reports on Windows 7 have been extremely positive, so you’re going to take the plunge.

It’s upgrade time. Only, you’re not sure what goes where, and what the upgrade path might be. You’ve been running XP Professional on your work machine, and you want to move to Windows 7 Professional. Right?

Wrong.

The problem is, Windows 7 only supports an in-place upgrade from the immediately prior version, which in this case is Windows Vista. As a matter of course, Microsoft abandoned the multi-version upgrade starting with XP. You could upgrade Windows 2000/ME to Windows XP, but you could NOT upgrade Windows 98 directly to XP. (An in-place upgrade keeps your files, settings, and installed programs intact. Basically, it’s exactly the same computer and stuff, only with a different operating system.)

So if you’re running any flavour of Windows XP, and you want to move to 7, you have to do a custom install. Which usually also means a clean install. (A clean install does NOT keep your files or settings in their original places.)

The only way to do an in-place upgrade is from Windows Vista. And even then, it’s not a blanket procedure. And rather than going into all the nitty gritty detail, we’ll just point you at this graphic from the people at Ziff Davis. The short version is this: Going from XP to 7 requires a re-install of the operating system. In Vista, you can do an in-place upgrade to the comparable version of Windows 7.

The part that will scare many people is the fact that a clean install will wipe out all your files and settings. This is not necessarily 100% accurate. There are ways to move your files from the old to the new, along with many (if not all) of your settings. Bookmarks, browsing history, documents, can all be moved pretty easily. Which means that if you’re on XP and going to 7, you need to allow about an extra hour to move all your files and settings, plus additional time to install all your programs.

So how long does it all take? Well, for testing purposes we tried it on a not-brand-new spare computer we had lying around, running XP Professional. To do the backup of files and data (2 GB), install the new operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate), restore data and restore applications (FileZilla FTP, Firefox Web Browser, and MS Office all had to be re-installed) took a bit over 2 hours. Of course, your mileage may vary depending on the speed of your computer, but the principle remains the same – allow 2-4 hours to do the transfer and upgrade.

Of course, your IT support people should have other tools available to do the upgrade, or at least to make it less complicated. Because really, don’t you have better things to do than sit around watching a progress indicator crawl along? So contact your technical support provider to make sure the path to the future is a smooth one.