Starting now, you can buy a new computer with Vista and get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it’s released in late October. Here are the details of Dell’s offer, for example. It will not apply to every new computer but similar deals will be widely available. Shop carefully!
If you want a new computer now, you should buy a new computer. There’s no compelling reason to wait. Follow the suggestions in my shopping guide and you’ll have a computer that runs Vista like a champ. You’ll like it. Click here to start shopping in Dell’s Small Business division.
But add more weight to one of my recommendations: if you’re considering upgrading a few months later to Windows 7, then make sure you buy Vista Business, not Vista Home Premium.
When the Windows 7 upgrade disk arrives for your new computer, you’ll do two things.
1. Read the feedback online about how upgrades are going. Every attempt to upgrade a working computer from one operating system to another (Windows XP –> Vista, Windows 98 –> XP) has been more or less disastrous, despite promises that it would go smoothly. We’ll know pretty quickly how Vista –> Windows 7 goes. As I said yesterday, there are reasons to think the Windows 7 upgrade will be easy and painless – but if the news is bad, you might decide to reformat and do a clean install of Windows 7 instead of an in-place upgrade.
2. Do a Complete PC Backup (only possible in Vista Business or Ultimate) and create an image of the hard drive before you start the Windows 7 upgrade. If the upgrade goes badly, you can restore your computer to its pre-upgrade state in minutes with no fuss and no worries.
Two more things:
Paul Thurrott did his usual thorough work to identify the details of what is known and unknown about Windows 7 pricing. (Examples of unknowns: the price to upgrade from one Windows 7 version to the next version – Home Premium to Professional, for example; the licensing rights for virtual Windows 7 computers; the details of doing a clean install using an upgrade license.) Here are some questions and answers about Windows 7 prices and upgrades.
If you subscribe to bruceb news by email, you didn’t get the link yesterday to order Windows 7 from Amazon. Click here to pre-order Windows 7 at a discount.
