Windows 7 end 2010 with over 20% market share

Like TM and Mycheal have stated, if you have older hardware (especially anything built prior to the release of Vista), keep what you have. The cost to make everything work may exceed the cost of a budget model computer with Windows 7 preinstalled, which is the way I went.

I still have my Dell notebook built in 2005, it runs Win 2K/XP Media Center with no issues. But the only version of Windows 7 that fully functions on it is Home Basic, and it's not available for retail sale in the US (shame on Microsoft). They could have done it, had they wanted to, but the OEM's are too powerful, and they're the way that Microsoft sells a large number of their OS's. So they could care less about providing 7 for us to install on older systems, and it works fine.

Drivers are a big time problem with the older computers. But if your system came with Vista, you should be able to run 7 just fine. You do need to run the Upgrade Advisor, to give you an idea of what you may need to upgrade, probably mostly drivers.

Of course, for those who know how to work on computers, and with OS's, one can make a recently built computer run Windows 7 just fine.

Cat

Now I don't mean to say upgrading to W7 won't work. My computer is an older dual-core about 6 yrs old and it works and I'm glad I switched .... NOW. But for the first couple months when everything was different and my tracball wasn't fully functional and I had freezing problems, well then I wasn't "a happy camper". The learning curve, working the bugs out, and more stringent security can be frustrating and I'm not sure I see any added value for the trouble. I mean that little aero trick of turning the windows at a 30 degree angle into the screen is cute to show people but on my own machine I don't even use that once a month.