IT Expert Voice

Microsoft has essentially extended Windows XP’s sales life, and many observers expect that Windows XP’s support life will also last longer than expected. So should your enterprise stick with Windows XP or continue on to Windows 7?

It seemed so clear. Like it or lump it, the top brass realized, your company would move its enterprise desktops to Windows 7 as Windows XP came to the end of its sales and service life. Then, Microsoft changed the rules. At the same time that Microsoft announced the beta program for Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 SP1s, the company “decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1.” This means you’ll still be able to “downgrade” PCs from Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows XP Pro until early 2015. READ MORE

The official word from Microsoft is you can’t upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7; you need a clean install. But in fact you can upgrade, including moving your data, applications, and settings. Here are some tips to help.

With Microsoft having abandoned Windows XP SP2, late-adopting companies still using XP are being pushed to make the upgrade to Windows 7. Windows XP is a dying breed.  It’s time to upgrade. Microsoft says only Windows Vista systems are eligible to upgrade, while Windows XP users need to make a clean install of the new operating system:

You can’t directly upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, says Microsoft.

Thankfully, you can avoid the need to wipe the disk of each PC and clean-install Windows 7 manually.  Some tricks are more effective than others. Let’s look at some of these upgrade options, the DO’s and DON’Ts, and pick the slickest (and cheapest) and method.
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If you are looking for in-place migration of Windows XP desktops, you could use Laplink’s PC Mover. But if you want to preserve your Windows XP desktop and switch back to it when you need to run an application that doesn’t work on Windows 7, then you should consider Zinstall’s XP7. It creates an XP virtual machine (VM) with all of your old applications and files just a mouse click away. “Consider” is the operative word, however. The product idea is sound; the implementation is lacking. READ MORE

Windows XP Mode is a simple, single-user virtualization solution that allows users to move to Windows 7 and still access old, incompatible applications. Here are five setup secrets and five gotchas to watch out for. READ MORE

For CIOs at a lot of mid-sized companies, the business case for adopting Windows 7 might be as simple as this: Time.

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If you are running Windows XP and want to upgrade to Windows 7 without having to reformat your machine’s hard drive, you currently have one choice: a utility called PC Mover from Laplink software. This video shows you the steps involved in the migration, along with things to look out for in using PC Mover. READ MORE

What has changed in Windows 7 networking from Vista and XP versions? In this screencast, we show you how to do a few common tasks, such as connect to a new network, set up firewall options, find and renew your IP address, and how to start to troubleshoot networking problems. We show where the commands are now located in the new interfaces and highlight a few new features.
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