Thinking through Windows 7 Upgrades

I’m going over things trying to decide if I can put Windows 7 on my old laptop and on the Desktop computer. I know I can, I just am not sure yet if there are enough drivers for essentials of graphics & internet connectivity yet.

My Desktop has been around for a long time, in computer years.

Athlon 64 3000+
Abit NF8-V mb
(The mb has Nvidia nForce3 250 GB chipset)
2 MB Corsair DDR (1mbx2)
ATI 7500 AGP
DWL-G520M wireless adapter

Those are the specs that pass and don’t pass muster with Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and online Windows 7 Compatibility checking.

In the Advisor I’m told my wireless adapter won’t work.

Online in the Compatibility area of Win 7 search for it and it’s compatible.

That’s just the icing on the cake for this affair. My main concern is the nForce 3 chipset, which I’ve read here and there about the same sort of chipset & ATI AGP and Win 7 troubles as I’m thinking I could have. Yes my desktop is “old” but it runs decent, stable as Win XP is. I don’t want it left in the dark ages, and when it comes down to it, I cannot afford to leave it there but can’t afford to upgrade anything except software soon. Hardware, like motherboard, the spiral begins, ever more quickly spinning downward at the thought of changing the MB to get a different chipset. No way. I have to make this setup work.

So it’s my business to attend to organizing the files in preparation for moving things around to eventually install Windows 7 in a dual-or-triple boot situation. Win 7 & Win XP, maybe some Linux flavor added in (I have been leaning both ways for years, maybe, maybe not …)

The old laptop is an HP Pavillion dv5 which they say on their website is supported as Win 7 upgradable, though they as of yet have no Win 7 Drivers.

I do know that my laptop came “Vista compatible” back in the day. Vista wasn’t out yet. Anyhow I have run Vista Upgrade Advisor on it in the past, it was OK to upgrade.

Running the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor on my HP laptop was similar to my desktop, complained at my graphics processor.

But since my HP laptop is a manufactured product, unlike my desktop which I put together piecemeal, and HP says they’ll have drivers, then I’ll have to go with, sure, you will or Vista drivers will work or … I’ll just have to dual-boot the laptop too, just to be sure it’ll work.

Fun fun fun. Moving files, cleaning up. Backing up. Joy, joy, joy. Which reminds me, I need to back up my websites too.

Windows 7 Upgrade Family pack is avail. for $149 and it’s exactly what I can use. I hope the pricing stays around until I can do it.