Microsoft wants you to have a Windows 7 launch party

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by Pie

On all our XP machines, we chose to go with a clean OEM install of 7 on new partitions or harddrives. The one Vista laptop was 'upgraded', though I think we will wipe it and do a clean install as well.

Even as far back as moving from Winblows 3.1 to 95, I've found it's often asking for trouble to upgrade Windows in place. I always recommend staring from scratch whenever possible.

Bruce, one option is to buy a new hard drive and install the new OS on it. It's especially attractive if you've been thinking you could use the extra space anyway. But once you're up and running, you can copy all your files off your old disk (install it in the computer as a second drive, or buy an external enclosure for it). This gives some peace of mind for people who are scared to just wipe out everything on their computer.