Firstly, what will Windows7 do for you? Well if you are happy with your PC at present and your system is working efficiently and does all you need it to, then upgrading to Windows7 now will bring you few benefits and might just cause you a lot of hassle. Why? Well you won't need a long memory to remember all the problems with Vista when it was first launched! That said, Windows7 has been developed to be what Vista should have been, and so far it appears that Microsoft have made sure that it is a more trouble free system from the start after their Vista experience.

Here is a list of the stated benefits of Windows7:

• 7 is faster and more efficient than Vista, and in most cases, faster than XP.
• 7 has a lot of new and very nice features that aren't in other versions. See: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/products/features
• 7 looks nice, is designed for touchscreen interaction (everything is larger by default)
• 7 is fully compatible with Vista (uses the same kernel)
• 7 has compatibility mode with XP SP3 & Vista SP2.

As you can see, the main benefits are speed, has some “nice features” and it “looks nice”. Not really a lot to get you rushing out to buy it now, I would guess!

However, you will have to upgrade to Windows7 one day. Why? Quite simply because XP is practically no longer available and Vista will in due course disappear from the shelves as well. Also, all new PCs will soon have Windows7 installed as standard. Here are our suggestions:

• If all your PCs are running well and serving your business efficiently, then wait about 6 months, or until the first service pack is launched to fix any initial bugs before buying Windows7.
• According to Microsoft, Windows7 is not easily upgraded from XP. In other words it could cost you a few hours of your, or your IT suppliers time (hopefully Micro-Net!) per PC. This is quite an investment and therefore unless you have quite compelling reasons to upgrade now, it would be better to wait at least until Windows7 is a proven system.
• If you have machines on Vista which are slow then Windows7 would greatly increase the speed of these machines, however, so would more memory, and adding memory is cheaper and easier than upgrading to Windows7, not to mention less risky at present.
• Microsoft has already withdrawn support for Windows XP, however support for Vista will not be withdrawn until 2012.
• If you want to spend some money on software, then upgrading to Office 2007 will give you greater productivity improvements by far – once you get used to it.

As already mentioned, you will need to change one day! Our guess is that by and large most companies will migrate over time replacing old XP machines as they get old with new Windows7 machines and perhaps upgrading their Vista machines in the meantime.

If you have any questions about Windows7, Vista or anything involving your system, then please give us a call – we are here to help you!