If you plan on upgrading your PC or buying a new PC with Windows 7, Microsoft has finally done something that it has yet to do with its other operating systems.  It has put up a website that will help users "Install, Uninstall, Re-Install, or Upgrade" Windows 7.

The site can be found here.  The site will help with the above mentioned tasks for the following operating systems:

Windows 7
Windows Vista
Windows XP

Remember that there is no "true" upgrade path from Windows XP, the installation of Windows 7 will "see" that you have a previous version of Windows on your system. It will do a clean install, and will create a folder called "Windows.old" on the drive that Windows 7 is installed on. This is sort of a "backup" if it can even be called that.  It saves the previous version of Windows XP's files and folders to allow you to move the files to the current operating systems folders.

Windows Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7 without the need to re-install applications or files, but there still maybe some work to do after the upgrade process is complete.

Once again, if you do plan on upgrading instead of a clean install, be sure you have a verified backup of either your whole system or at the very least, a backup of things you can not afford to lose.

If you have any questions about upgrading, compatibility, or backing up your data, send me an email or call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department at 800-672-4806.

-Bryan