Before you decide to make the big jump, you need to know if your system is powerful enough to handle Windows 7. This should not be a big worry since Windows 7 is not as bloated as Vista and doesn't take a heavy toll on system resources. Another good thing is that it can run on most netbooks.

The minimum system requirements listed by Microsoft are almost similar to what they specified for Vista - 1GHz processor, 1GB (32-bit)/2GB (64-bit) RAM, 16GB (32-bit)/20GB (64-bit) hard disk space, and DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver. The only difference here is that Vista struggled on PCs with this minimum configuration but Windows 7 might perform better.

If you want to get a comprehensive lowdown on whether your XP machine can handle Windows 7, run Microsoft's Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (find it in the DVD). It will give you a bottom-line appraisal of your XP-based hardware and give you the green light, tell you the machine won't make it or spell out what you need to beef up.