After much trepidation and waiting I FINALLY made the leap and migrated to Windows 7 yesterday. Having been warned by others, including the installation instructions from HP (I have an HP laptop purchased a year ago so received a complimentary update in Q4 last year), to back up all my data I spent the first 1 – 2 hours being sure that was done several ways. In addition to Norton Backup, I also copied my data directories and Application Data directories manually as well to my local LaCie USB drive.I came across and article with the useful suggestion to type the command %appdata% in the Command Line to get a directory of all your application data and suggest you do this periodically as well.‘Belarc Advisor’ http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html is another GREAT utility that I discovered while preparing for this move is that lists all the hardware and software on your system. The resulting report includes software licenses and installed updates so it is VERY handy for a snapshot of your system.The process itself is straight-forward but took approximately 4 hours and at some points it appeared that it was not doing anything for extended periods. The install does show progress not only with a progress bar but a text line with what is actually happening. One thing, I have decided as a result of this exercise is that I am going to get a decent ‘imaging package’ soon as another back-up that will make this whole process less manually intensive.I will continue to monitor performance of the new system and may eventually take the plunge and do a ‘clean install’ as I have been told this takes about the same amount of time as the migration/update and you get the added benefit of all the ‘cling-ons’ from your past being cleared away. Will let you know if I decide to go that route and share that experience as well.
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