Microsoft has tried to provide the tools users need to make the transition as easy as possible, but you may hit some snags. Here are five things you should be aware of as you upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Now that Windows 7 is here, the three out of four users who have rejected Windows Vista and clung to the tried and true Windows XP can breathe a sigh of relief and consider moving to the new flagship operating system.

Upgrading or switching operating systems often comes with some trials and tribulations and the Windows 7 upgrade is no exception. Microsoft has tried to provide the tools users need to make the transition as easy as possible, but you may hit some snags. Here are five things you should be aware of as you upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7.

1. . Unfortunately, Microsoft has not provided Windows 7 with the capability to upgrade directly from Windows XP. The explanation is that so much has changed between Windows XP and Windows 7 within the operating system kernel itself, the Registry, the drivers, etc. that trying to get from Point A to Point B just won’t work. That isn’t as horrible as it sounds. Frankly, although in-place upgrades are convenient, experts always recommend doing a fresh install when moving to a new operating system in order to ensure the best performance and overall experience. Just think of it like Microsoft did you a favor by forcing you to do it the right way. You’re welcome.
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2. ?? You can’t get from Windows XP to Windows 7 directly, but there was a little known operating system that came out between the two. I know you have blocked out that part of your memory to avoid horrible Windows Vista flashbacks, but surely you could make the switch to Windows Vista if its only for an hour or two. Windows XP users can work around the upgrade issue if they have a copy of Windows Vista. It doesn’t even have to be licensed since you won’t be activating it and won’t have it loaded for more than a few hours– well within the 30-day trial period. Just upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, then upgrade the Windows Vista system to Windows 7. I make no assurances that this will go off without a hitch. I will add a disclaimer: refer to the first tip where I reminded you that it is recommended that you do the clean install.

3. . If you bought your printer when Clinton was still in office, or your graphics card when Michael Jordan was still ruling the NBA, you might have a hard time finding software updates and drivers to make them work with Windows 7. Thankfully, Microsoft has an app for that. Microsoft created the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor tool which scans your hardware and software and identifies any known compatibility issues. It provides guidance on how to resolve identified issues, and makes recommendations for what you should do to ensure a satisfying Windows 7 upgrade experience

4. . Whether you do the clean install or some sort of crazy work-around to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7, arguably the most important part is making you’re your data and personal preferences stay intact. That’s where the Windows 7 Easy Transfer tool comes in. The actual file is You can find it on the Windows 7 DVD under First you run it on your existing Windows XP system to migrate your user profile(s) to some external storage. Then, after Windows 7 is installed you run it again to import the user profile(s) to Windows 7. One small caveat. If you have 32-bit Windows XP and you are taking the opportunity while upgrading to make the switch to 64-bit Windows 7 you might run into some problems. I was unable to transfer user settings from a 32-bit to a 64-bit system using this tool during a previous upgrade.

5. . If you’re running Windows XP I assume you have invested in some security software– antivirus, antispyware, personal firewall, etc. Because of changes that Microsoft has made to protect the operating system kernel, those Windows XP-era security programs will most likely not work in Windows 7. The good news is that the Windows 7 firewall is significantly better than the Windows XP firewall, and Microsoft provides adequate security protection for free with Windows Defender and the recently released Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus program. You may still want to explore alternatives and install more robust protection, but these tools should provide sufficient protection for the time being without costing you any money.

If you don’t want to spend all that time alone, maybe you could throw one of the Windows 7 parties and you and all of your Windows XP friends can have ice cream and cake (or pizza and beer) while you make the transition.

Of course, you might better off to simply invest the extra money and get a whole new system with Windows 7 already installed. If you have held on to your computer hardware as long as you held onto the Windows XP operating system then you are really skewing Moore’s Law and its time you upgrade.

It’s not often that the two most popular operating systems get major updates so close to each other, so we couldn’t resist throwing them into a cage match together. Already we can hear some of you screaming that Snow Leopard isn’t a major update–we know this one’s personal! But is Windows 7 nothing more than “Vista done right”?

Microsoft’s severe stumble with Vista aside, Windows 7 clearly positions the operating system for the future, with a new look that integrates heavily with the new features. Snow Leopard, too, is geared toward the future, saving you space on your hard drive and including some useful new tricks that Microsoft still lacks.

The judges for this Prizefight hardly shy away from telling you what they think about software, webware, and the operating systems you need to get to all those goodies. Now, everybody’s got their opinion on the great Apple versus Microsoft debate, but for a few minutes, suspend your disbelief as they explain which operating system is better and why.

Microsoft is ready to roll out its newest operating system on Thursday

Microsoft releases Windows 7 to the world on Thursday as the US software giant tries to regain its stride after an embarrassing stumble with the previous operating system Vista.

“It’s a big deal for Microsoft,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said of the Windows 7 launch. “Windows Vista was a train wreck.”

Unlike past years, when the company recruited the likes of the Rolling Stones, Jerry Seinfeld, and other cultural icons to help pitch its software, Microsoft is keeping things low key for Windows 7’s debut. And with good reason. The company expended considerable resources to create buzz and consumer awareness around its previous OS, Windows Vista, only to watch the product get pilloried after its introduction in early 2007.

Critics complained Vista required too much computing horsepower, failed to maintain compatibility with older applications, and was full of annoying security features.

By now, you’ve seen the Windows 7 commercials and read the reviews. PCMag will have far more to say in the coming days and weeks about the quality and performance of Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS, as well as how it stacks up against its primary competition, Apple’s Snow Leopard. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could watch executives from both companies really have at it? Not with snarky commercials, but with an honest discussion of the technologies that drive these operating systems? It won’t happen, of course, but this is pretty close.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a surprise offer: Apple wanted to go on record and talk about why Snow Leopard is better than Windows 7. Apple’s Senior Director of Mac OS X Product Marketing Brian Croll gave me his side of the story. Then I interviewed Microsoft’s Jay Paulus, Director, Product Management Windows Client, to let him make his case. Although the interviews were conducted separately, I’ve tried to blend the comments to make it something of an ex post facto conversation. It seems fair enough, as each side knew I would be talking to the other. What I ended up with is a good-old-fashioned debate, in which I play the moderator—and occasional fact-checker. It may not settle the question of which OS is better, but goes into a lot more technical detail than the 30-second spots that will be all over TV this holiday season.

You’re not going to have Windows Vista to kick around anymore; on Thursday, its successor Windows 7 debuts.

As I write in today’s column, 7 has issues of its own. You shouldn’t mistake Microsoft’s new release for some transcendental reinvention of Windows, or even an advance on the order of going from, say, Windows Millennium Edition to Windows XP. It’s a good upgrade — especially over the snakebit Vista — but not a fantastic one.

In that piece, I emphasize features that would be used most often in a single-computer, single-use situation — the likely state of affairs in many homes. As a result, I had to save some other features and details for this post. To wit:

* An in-place (i.e., non-destructive) install of Windows 7 Ultimate isn’t something to do if you’re in a hurry. That took two hours on a Hewlett-Packard dv3t laptop, one and a half on a Dell Inspiron 14 (yes, these are the laptops I reviewed in August). But a “custom install” over Windows XP took only half an hour on a Dell borrowed from the Post’s IT department (my notes read: “install begun 4:05. done 4:35. Wow!”).

* About the testing of Windows 7 Ultimate instead of the far more common Home Premium edition: That’s what Microsoft’s PR agency gave me, but the folks there assure me that the performance of Ultimate and Home Premium, in terms of things like bootup time and memory use, is the same. I ignored Ultimate-only features in my review.

* I also ignored the HomeGroup feature of Windows 7, a new, simplified home-networking and file-sharing option that only works between computers already running Windows 7. In that context, it can work quite well … but I’d like it better if HomeGroup didn’t first assign let you write your own one-time setup password instead of assigning a randomly chosen, 10-character alphanumeric password before letting you write your own.

* The old HP printer/scanner that Apple’s new Snow Leopard release of Mac OS X supports so poorly worked correctly, without any driver downloads, in Windows 7. (But I should note that recent versions of Linux have also recognized this printer and scanner on its own.)

* Since so many of you have been asking about keeping your e-mail intact in a migration from XP or Vista to 7, here’s my advice on how to do it: Go to Microsoft’s Windows Live download site now — before you upgrade Windows — download the installer and add only Windows Live Mail, not any of the other Live applications. That new program should automatically pick up your old Outlook Express or Windows Mail messages, address book and settings. You can do this later — Windows Live Mail brought in a set of Outlook Express mail accounts after 7’s installer had wiped out Outlook Express and all of Windows XP — but by taking care of things upfront, you get one worry out of the way.

* About that tricky XP-to-7 migration: My concern here isn’t about the Easy Transfer utility — itself notably improved over what shipped with Vista — missing some of your files, it’s about reinstalled programs not finding the files that Easy Transfer moves back in after a 7 install. For example, Mozilla Firefox recovered all of its settings, but iTunes defaulted back to its standard CD-rip options and then wound up importing a second copy of every song in my library as part of its usual first-run sequence. Google’s Picasa had to find my photos all over again and lost the album I’d earlier created in it. Extra-cost, third-party migration tools will attempt to bring over installed programs as well as data; the Wall Street Journal’s Katherine Boehret tried out one earlier this week but didn’t rave about it.

* Windows 7’s control panel looks much like Vista’s, but it has enough small differences — for instance, it lacks Vista’s “Check for updates” link on its default screen — I’m nervous about having to write three different sets of directions in my Help File column, on top of the two already necessary to cover XP and Vista.

* Microsoft has already shipped some initial bug fixes for Windows 7; if it sticks to its customary practice, you’ll see a much broader Service Pack update six to nine months from now.