The questions of “should I or shouldn’t I?” related to a Windows 7 upgrade on existing hardware have already begun, and hopefully we at PCS are doing a good job of providing appropriate answers. Since computer companies and PC resellers are expecting their copies of Win7 this week and the official retail roll-out happens October 22nd, we figured it would be a good idea to provide a simple outline as to what types of systems can and cannot be upgraded to Windows 7.

Please use the following points below to help you determine your upgrade path to Windows 7.  If you have any questions about what is touched on, please feel free to post your comments and questions or drop us a line here.

If your PC is already running Windows Vista…

You should be able to upgrade your system to Windows 7.  Unfortunately, we cannot tell you that all systems that currently run Vista can run Windows 7 due to one of the reasons that Vista got a bad name in the first place: low-end hardware.

When Vista was first released by OEMs and put “out there” for consumption, system manufacturers would put Windows Vista Basic on hardware that barely ran the fledgling OS.  If you have one of these systems, you may want to consider either a memory upgrade to at least 2GB or a total system replacement.  Windows 7 is a great OS, but it’s no miracle-worker and will only run as well as the hardware that it’s on.

If you purchased your PC in the last two years..

Windows 7 is right up your alley.  You should have the CPU and the memory necessary to run new new OS efficiently and effectively.

If your PC is more than three years old..

A hardware audit to know for sure if your system is “up to snuff” is in your future, with the primary focus being on (a) processing power and (b) RAM memory available.  Keep in mind that the minimum requirements for running Windows 7 are:

• 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
• 1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
• 16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
• DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

If your PC came with WindowsXP and it’s more than five years old..

Forget it – it’s time for a complete system upgrade.  You’ve gotten a LOT of use out of your old system and you should feel good about that, but the  truth is that you’re rockin’ an 8 year old operating system and its days are numbered.  Sooner rather than later, Microsoft will discontinue support for XP (Windows 2000 is already on the chopping block) and we’d rather see you upgrade because you want to, instead of upgrading because you have to.