Will Win7 solve my Vista problems?

It maybe time to purchase two new machines if you want Windows 7 on all of them.

This machine has Windows 7 support and can be upgraded without problems. Drivers & Downloads for XPS/Dimension 430

These machines have Vista 32-Bit and 64-Bit support and can be upgraded to Windows 7 32-Bit or 64-Bit with little problem if all the hardware is up to par. Drivers & Downloads for Dimension E521

These machines could be upgraded but in my opinion would be better served if left with XP.
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Other questions

You will not have any troubles communicating between 32-Bit and 64-Bit across a network. The only troubles I have is older OS's getting access rights on the newer OS's. My Win7_64-Bit will see XP_32-Bit just fine. Its the other way around that gets me, I haven't spent much time on the issue because it is not that important to me. From XP I get a login screen to login to Win7. Why I ask because I have no login data stored on my account. I am the sole user with no login screen but yet XP will ask for something when I try to access Win7 across the network. Simply leaving it blank and clicking continue will not work.

The 3PC license was available but I've not seen it available here recently. I do hope it is still available as I thought it was good to have a 3PC license for Windows.

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PS: I hope the links work for you, I tried a direct link to your machine but Dell wants to be an _ss and make things difficult linking to more than one machine. On my side both links take me to the same page and I have to manually change to the second machine.

Yes, you can. Windows 7 uses about 12-14GB of disk space though.

I highly recommend doing clean installs and reformat of the drive may be done during the Windows 7 install process.

Now your older video cards may not give you all of the Windows Aero features.

You can run just about any 32-bit software on an x64 system. There are some that won't run but most seem to be the AV and firewall programs.

If you're not familiar with VM software, I recommend staying away from it. Mostly it's used by the ubergeeks who like to test different operating systems.

Have you tried the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor? If not, give it a run on your computer and see what it says. I don't forsee any issues with your going to 64bit but if you did install it and have too many issues and wanted to then go to 32bit, it would require a total reinsatll of the Operating Syatem

Brilliant all the advice. One last question. The 2 dimesion E521 have a maximum of 4GB of RAM so is there any benefit from 64 bit? In fact I have read that some software may actually run slower on 64 bit. Should I
a) Install 64 bit on everything just for consistency
b) Install 32 bit on these 2 lower spec PCs

Mike

The only thing I can say to this question, would be to tell you I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit with 2GB memory and a lesser CPU without any noticeable lag in speed.

As far as consistency, I see no reason why you should worry about the differences in 32-Bit and 64-Bit systems. But if you want to use all of the 4GB memory the 64-Bit OS is the only way.

Being that you have 4GB RAM on 2 of these machines, 64 bit is the only way to get the full benefit of it. 32 bit OS's only uses 3GB RAM by design. I cant see where you can go wrong with installing 64 bit Windows 7 on these computers. You will actually have a gain in performance, being that you can access all of your RAM. The lower spec system (the kids one), after seeing that there is only 30 to 40GB to work with, unless you're getting a family pack, it may be best to leave XP on it. If you're getting a family pack, I'd say yes, go for it. I don't even know for 100% that these packs are still being offered, there was something mentioned about the stock on hand in the ad. I don't want to see you spending a fortune for an OS for it and having to possibly pay to upgrade a lot of drivers. For a little more, you can catch a laptop on sale ready to roll. I'll leave that decision up to you, I'm just letting you know what you may be getting into, so you can see all of your options. Hopefully, we here have given you some information to go on. Best of luck to you.

Hi Clifford The Dell Drivers for the E521 only list Vista 64 bit not Windows 7. Is that the best thing to download if i'm going for 64 bit?

Vista drivers will work just fine with Windows 7.