"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Richard" wrote ...
Check with the authors of your ham apps to see if they will upgrade
them to Win 7, and if so, when. It sometimes takes a while for apps
to be upgraded.

Excellent advice. Never select a comptuer or OS for an app(s)
before confirming that they will operate there. Win7 is available
in pre-release ("RC-1") for the purposes of testing hardware and
software compatibility. My local PC shoppe hands out (official!)
discs out for free. Of course they will stop running next spring,
after which you should have paid for the license if you want to use
it.

Note that the requirements for the newer operating systems (post-
XP) are significantly higher for application authors, so don't be
too surprised if some favorite apps take longer to make the upgrade.
Also not unusual for developers to just throw in the towel at the
sight of the newer requirements. One of the major reasons for the
continued brisk sales of XP ("retrograde" or not :-) MS shot
themselves in the foot with Vista and Win7 is supposed to be better
at running in "backwards compatible" mode.

All of the reviews I've seen about Windows 7 say that it is much
better that Vista.

Indeed, sales of XP continue as if Vista never happened.
Microsoft may be finally able to discontinue XP after users
are convinced that Win7 is decent (assuming, hoping...)


I have a brisk business downgrading to XP just because of its speed,
stability and backward compatibility.