Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor Final Version Released

In anticipation of the upcoming GA (general availability) day for Windows 7 tomorrow (October 22, 2009) I’ve been checking in on the Microsoft Download Center regularly to see what’s popped up there since my last visit. Though I checked on Monday, it was probably too early in the day to see then what I saw this morning upon my visit there — namely, the final (non-beta) release of the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor aka W7UA. It’s gone up a bit in size since the last release in mid-September, so obviously there have been some changes under the hood since then as well. Nothing loathe, I downloaded and install the software on my Windows 7 Ultimate production PC.

As far as I can tell the only change to the initial screen is that the word beta no longer appears anywhere thereupon.

After firing off the program, it shows the same “checking compatibility screen that earlier versions did.

After running the program, however, lots of changes are evident, as shown in this final results screen.

W7UA now recognizes that Win7 is installed, and pinpoints possible software compatibility issues

Earlier versions didn’t report that I was already running Windows 7, nor perforce address possible upgrades from lower- to higher-tier versions of that OS. Even better, I’m seeing much more helpful and useful information about upgrades to software with potential compatibility problems, including download links to grab such materials, when available. That’s really neat.

Even if you’ve already got a copy of the W7UA beta, it’s worth grabbing the final, production version. It will serve you better than the old one did!