ok, i'm a fool. i've yet to back up anyone's data when doing a straight upgrade and not once has any data been lost. if you want to add an extra step of security, back up. sorry for my failed advice.

What I have is an upgrade specific to my PC. When the last one borked, I picked up a new one and it came with the free upgrade. It says it contains 32 bit software only.

I have 286GB free on my HD.

Enough all ready, do the upgrade and let us know how it went. 

Just back everything up - wb's and all for stardock programs completely. Your more than likely to have problems with upgrading and trying to hang on to any program that is installed already. Even though it may work does not mean it will work correctly. Thus after you do the upgrade; whatever is not working correctly will have to be uninstalled and reinstalled. That is if you can unistall it?

Always best to just copy everything such as files, wb's, and the sort to an external source and uninstall whatever you think will have problems. Then do the upgrade...

There is no clean install with any upgrade.

What I suggest for you to do first is to DEFRAG. I started with a brand new computer with Vista that I hadn't touched yet. I got rid of all the bloatware that came with the computer, upgraded everything and then started to install the upgrade. After trying to install it twice (was taking hours and hours), I read somwhere to defrag before you upgrade. I defragged and then the install took less than 45 minutes.

   Yes, that's what I did with the beta and RC of Win 7.  Just choose the Advanced install option and choose the drive to install to  but back up your data, including Email and internet favorites/bookmarks and any other data that may be saved with the install folders or in you profile.  Make sure you have all your serial install disks and serial numbers for programs

    If you mean run them, no.  You can still access the folders where they were installed and any data there but you will have to re-install any programs you want to use in 7 under 7 so be sure you have all your install disks and serial numbers for programs.

As long as you don't reformat anything your data should be accessable.  I keep my data on a seperate HD than the OS/programs just in case I need to re-install the OS. Back up everything anyway.  Better safe than sorry and you should always back up your data anyway.

For skinning,

Well I meant why would anyone keep Vista around when 7 is so much better. 7 can be skinned.

Not cool Fuzzy.

So glad all my data is stored on a separate physical drive, and anything that is stored on the system drive is automatically backed up to the external through SyncBackSE. Boy I sure don't miss having to backup and restore data when formatting.

Now if only I had $1100 to build a new machine to put 7 on.

The one I want is just a modest machine from scratch, want to leave my XP box intact.

Perhaps, but there's a difference between "just enough" and wanting a good machine that'll last for a few years. Being a huge geek and wanting the latest and greatest doesn't help much either.

Bebi - My machine is a bit more than "just enough".

PSP8 works fine for me on Win 7 64 bit.

I have yet to experiance a problem with software or hardware once I turned off UAC. Your mileage might vary.