Guided Tour: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

The beta version of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor is ready for download. You can check it for yourself if you like, but here’s a guided tour through a (slam-dunk) installation and scan. I picked a system already loaded for bear to try this tool on, knowing it would pass the scan,  just to show the outline of the program’s installation and use. Here goes.

1. After downloading the program, run Windows7UpgradeAdvisor.msi

Win7 Upgrade Advisor launch screen

2. Click Next, then click the checkbox to accept the EULA

It’s OK to run this beta software: It only scans your machine.

3. Supply an installation target folder, or stick with the default (that’s what I did).

By default the program goes in the Program Files folder hierarchy

4. Wait while the program installs itself on your system.

Wait while the program installs (took under a minute on my PC)

5. When installation completes, you can close Microsoft Installer.

6. Next, navigate to Start, All Programs, where you’ll find an entry for Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Beta. Fire that puppy off!

7. As the program runs, you’ll get a circulating progress bar. Whereas the Vista version took about 4 minutes to complete on this computer, the Windows 7 version finished in just under 3.

While the program scans your system and hardware, the progress bar circulates.

8. When the program finishes you’ll see a summary screen pop up. This one simply indicates I won’t get everything from Windows 7 that I got from Windows Ultimate (thank goodness! ;-).

From Vista Ultimate (source OS) the only upgrade target is Windows 7 Ultimate: I can do an in-place upgrade.

9. More details on the hardware checks indicate I have a fast enough CPU, sufficient RAM and disk space, and my graphics card can handle Aero.

This system passes all requisites with flying colors!

In future blogs, I’m going to try other systems with the tool, including a modest notebook, a netbook, and an older single-core machine, and I’ll report on those results. This tour should give you a pretty good idea about where to get the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor beta, and how to use it yourself.