Windows 7 RTM Review: Improvements But Security Issues Remain

Only users moving from Vista to Windows 7 within the same architecture (32 bit to 32 bit or 64 bit to 64 bit) have the option to perform an in-place upgrade, and, even then, there are limits. This is because you cannot downshift across versions: If you currently have Vista Ultimate, you cannot upgrade to Win 7 Home Premium or Professional. You can go up – say, from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Ultimate – though. Also of note, you cannot move from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Enterprise. (Check out Walt Mossberg’s useful upgrade chart here.)

To perform custom installations, users will need to collect and reinstall all applications as part of the process. At the very least, I would advise that users put a Windows 7- or Windows Vista-compatible driver for the computer’s network adapter on a USB stick before beginning a custom install.

Windows 7 will, however, keep all your data intact – the custom installation process collects the old operating system C: drive and saves it on the upgraded system in a folder called Windows.old.

In addition, Microsoft provides a link to the beta of Windows Upgrade Advisor, a program that scans the current system for incompatible programs and drivers. At the very least, users should expect their current anti-malware suites to have issues in Windows 7, so I would advise removing the application before upgrade – even if the Advisor reports the program only as a potential problem.

Faster clean installs for Ultimate Windows 7

I tested both the 32-bit and 64-bit iterations of Windows 7 Ultimate against their Vista SP2 Ultimate counterparts on a pair of machines.

The first machine represents a common recent-model laptop similar to those used in businesses both large and small today: a Dell XPS M1330 with 3GB of RAM, a 2.6GHz Core2Duo T9500 processor, a 160GB hard drive and an NVidia M8400 Graphics chip.

The other system I used represents a much higher-end desktop: a home-built 3.0GHz quad-core Phenom II 945 with 4GB of 1066 DDR3 RAM, a 1TB hard disk and an ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 video card.

At least from an optical media source, Windows 7 provided a more streamlined clean install process than Windows Vista. I measured this process from first boot from the DVD to when a user could log in and interact with the client hardware system.

On the Dell laptop, 32-bit Windows 7 installation took 21 minutes, compared with 32 minutes for Vista SP2; 64-bit Windows 7 took 28 minutes to install compared with 30 minutes for Vista x64.

On the desktop, installation proved fast in all instances, with Windows 7 again providing the best times. Windows 7 scored 15 minutes for 32-bit Windows 7 installation and 18 minutes for 64-bit Windows 7 installation. Vista 32 bit and 64 bit installation timed at 18 and 19 minutes, respectively.