With Windows 7 now available for pre-order (and selling like
hotcakes), it's fast poised to become the next big emblematic
version of Windows -- what for a long time XP was to Windows as a
whole. But people currently running XP who want 7 need to be
mindful of a potential complication: While Windows supported direct
upgrades from XP to Vista, they're not supporting a direct upgrade
path from XP to 7.
What's this mean for potential upgraders? It means you can't take a
current Windows XP computer, throw in the Windows 7 installation
DVD, and upgrade your running XP installation to 7 with programs
and data intact.
This whole situation and the processes that go with it have set
more than a few heads spinning, mine included. It seems unfair to
deny XP users -- the biggest market segment of Windows users -- the
power to upgrade directly to 7. But as we'll see in this article,
the obstacles are more a question of which steps to take and in
what order.
What You Can't Do, And Why
Because this whole issue inspires such confusion, the details
are worth repeating in the plainest possible language. You
cannot:
- Take an existing Windows XP installation,
- Run the Windows 7 installer, and
- Upgrade that running copy of XP to 7 with its installed
programs and data intact.
What You Can Do
What you can do is one of these three things:
- Install a copy of Windows 7 on the same computer, in parallel
with your existing XP install,
- Install a copy of Windows 7 on the same computer and Replace
your existing XP install entirely, or
- Obtain an entirely new computer with 7 installed, and Migrate
your existing XP data and application settings to it.
The first and third options are non-destructive: they leave your
existing XP installation intact in one form or another and allow
you to copy what's most important over to the target install. The
second option is the least useful, and so will be covered only
peripherally here.