7 Reasons to Upgrade to Windows 7

While the contemplation is still on whether it's a major re-work (as Microsoft wants us to believe) or an incremental "Vista service pack" (as critics insist), the fact remains that Windows 7 is a necessary upgrade for dwellers of the Windows world. Pedigree polished by perseverance now ensures that the OS doesn't take forever to power up and shut down, notifications don't nag you every now and then, it doesn't hog up precious PC

resources and it's compatible with a vast array of peripherals and programmes. Yes, some even insist on calling it Vista, done right...
With its 100 new features, Windows 7 comes in four flavors, including Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
Seven good reasons to upgrade Windows 7 offers

1. Definite and measurable performance gains over Vista and XP. While the stress is on simplification, Windows 7 also promises speed, simplification, stability, security while improvements in productivity.
2. It is much faster than any Windows you have known so far - faster startups, faster operations, faster resumes (from sleep mode), and faster shutdowns.
3. Win7 betters battery life on laptops - almost a 15 to 25 per cent gain. However, netbooks users upgrading to Win7, though experiencing other benefits, can expect decreased battery performance.
4. Win7 boasts features like an improved Taskbar (the strip at the bottom of the screen where you can spy all the applications that are running), larger icons for easier viewing and click-ability, the ability to preset the order of preference or reorder, the preview thumbnails of all the various applications and browser windows that are open so you can simply go directly to the one you want.
5. Networking your PC is much easier.
   Right from setting up a local area network - wired or wireless - to sharing documents and files, Win7 is much friendlier than previous versions. Media sharing across devices enables you to play audio/video right off any PC on the network without copying files to yours.
6. The growing use of touchscreen computing has prompted Microsoft to go for enhanced finger-usability. Larger, more responsive touch-sensitive areas in the Start menu and taskbar aside, scrolling, resizing, media playing, panning, shrinking and zooming is now far easier onscreen. Better handwriting recognition and pen input improvements assure greater accuracy and faster speeds. Added now is the ability to create personalized custom dictionaries for handwriting recognition as well as the acceptance of mathematical expressions.
7. If you never upgraded from XP to Vista - due to hardware compulsions or have a lack of faith in the OS, go for Win7 as it runs everything from low-end 1GB RAM netbooks and beyond. Migrating from XP to Win7 takes 15 to 20 minutes but you'll have to reinstall your applications. Upgrading from Vista doesn't require the reinstallation of apps. Here's a step-by-step guide for both XP and Vista users.

Moving onto Win7 isn't really a bad deal after all!