Windows 7: When to upgrade

When is the right time to upgrade to Windows 7 and when is it likely to happen across the industry?

By Nicole Kobie, 22 Oct 2009 at 12:05

Now that Windows 7 has arrived, for both consumers and businesses alike, many are wondering when they should make the move to the new Microsoft operating system.

Advice from analysts isn’t making the issue any clearer, either. Some say wait a year – that’s the standard advice for operating systems, to wait until the first service pack arrives.

Others say businesses should start getting ready to migrate, as part of their exisiting plans.

And some say Windows 7 is so polished – and really just a service pack for Vista – and offers so many benefits, that the move should happen now. So which is the answer?

Definitely make the move

To start, the one thing analysts do agree on is that Windows 7 is worth the move. Now is not the time to start skipping operating systems, Gartner said – although it’s hard to believe many firms will want to stick with ageing XP or keep troublesome Vista when there’s something better on offer.

Gartner described Windows 7 as a “polishing” release – don’t make the joke, we’re not saying it – while Vista was more about “plumbing”. And Gartner says “polishing releases should never be skipped.”

Gartner analyst Michael Silver said: “While organisations that skipped Windows 2000 and waited for XP had some problems spanning the gap, organisations that adopted Windows 2000 and tried to skip Windows XP, waiting for Vista, had a much harder time.”

The only question then, is when?

Get going now

Gartner reckons it’ll take a year to 18 months to deploy a new OS, and you’ll want to be moving off XP by the end of 2012 latest. While Microsoft is offering patches until April 2014, third party software sellers may stop sooner.

“New releases of critical business software will require Windows 7 long before Microsoft support for Windows XP ends,” said Steve Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner. “Organisations that get all of their users off Windows XP by the end of 2012 will avoid significant potential problems.”

So that means its time to start looking to migrate now. Gartner also noted there’s no reason to wait until the first service pack ships before starting testing and deployment, especially for those firms which have skipped Vista.

Wait a bit, but do it soon

Lenovo’s head of new technology Howard Locker agreed, but said upgrade schedules really depend on existing systems.

While businesses on XP may need new hardware, and therefore will have to work the upgrade into their refresh cycle, on Vista it’s worth the upgrade, he said, explaining you need to look at your desktop estate and decide “where to break off upgrading versus getting new systems.”

If you’re already on Vista and have hardware that can support Windows 7, “go three to six months from now,” he told IT PRO.

“The difference is… Windows 7 is like a service pack to fix everything,” he said. “It’s not risky… Windows 7 is Vista service pack three. It even uses the same drivers.”

He noted that with previous OSes, “people neeed to wait unti service pack one to make sure it will work… this works from day zero.”

Wait a year

Consumer magazine have made the usual argument to wait a year before upgrading, not buying the argument that Windows 7 is stable enough to rush right in.

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Blimey

Is this true? “Today, Windows XP is installed on four out of five new PCs”

By trevor_learoyd on Friday Oct 23

Windows 7 - no drivers for new hardware

I have never been particularly happy with Vista due to the lack of support even a year after launch. Windows 7, so it was claimed, is Vista with some internal rewrites and faster. Drivers should be the same as Vista. I find that many hardware and softwave vendors do not support Vista 64 and have no support for Windows 7. Although you can shoehorn in Vista 64 bit drivers you need access to those first and some install applications tell you that your computer is now inadequate. I have SCSI for CD-RW, DVD-RAM and Scanners. Adaptec have been supporting very old cards with XP and Vista. It has been one of the few companies where I can load Unix and Windows and every new release is ready. They do not support Windows 7 for even current controller cards and many not do so. Vista 64 bit drivers work, but there are no instructions of what you need to do to get the computer up and running again. I am not sure if my DVD-RAM drive works or not as some CDs inserted are not recognised, but others are. The biggest problem was with the motherboard. Intel have new drivers for the onboard sound and network but not for the chip set. The Vista ones work, but you have to install under compatibility mode as Vista SP2. The instructions might be clear to the authors at M$ and Intel but not to the majority of us. Problems I have had with Vista 64 are still there. Applications slowing down and browser and TV cards freezing. Performance at other times exceeds Vista, particularly on file copying. The upgrade became a new install meaning I had to load all the software packages again. On Vista 32 bit Ultimate to Windows 7 Pro upgrade was not possible so I installed on a new partition. Vista and XP before it where slow installing but fast compared to Windows 7. 4 hours on the last section and no idea if it was doing anything or not. I still run old systems (98, 02 spec computers) and still have a need for Win98 as DOS applications run and allow the transfer from old CP/M discs. Some of the hardware needs the older computer as film scanners have SCSI and others only have software running under XP. I'll stick to XP on my laptop as well. I doubt that the four year old laptop has drivers for anything else although if Win7 is faster on Atom processors I might have a gain on the 1.1GHz Pentium M.

By Ip_gfge5146c4406 on Tuesday Oct 27