Okay. I'm currently on Windows XP and been wondering if I can update straight to Windows 7 Professional version?

I'm mainly asking cause currently, I can get Windows 7 Professional for around 15 dollars due to a big discount for AutoCAD students. (The idea is to get the programs, and such, to the students' home computers so they can train more on such stuff. More training = better workers).

So.. Can I do that or do I need to update to something else before going to Windows 7 Professional?

If it's an upgrade edition that relies on you having XP installed it should work I think. The only catch is that if you want to upgrade to win 7 64-bit I think you also need to be running XP 64-bit.

You cannot directly upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. The edition of either doesn't matter. Yes, you can use upgrade media on XP installs, but it's a destructive upgrade: All data will be lost and all programs removed.

You'll need to back up your data first (which is highly advisable even for an in-place upgrade), install Windows 7, restore all files, and reinstall all your applications. It's the only way.


Since XP->7 is a destructive upgrade, it doesn't matter if XP is 32-bit or 64-bit.

That is good to hear. I can back-up everything that I know for sure that we, (My family), uses and needs. I mean, the total amount of memory was are taking up is around 30GB and we wont need everything we have, since the majority of the stuff is most likely on Windows 7 or we don't use.

~Edit~

Mind if I ask what programs comes with the Windows 7 update? I know stuff like Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and Windows Picture Viewer will be there but what about other commonly used programs like IfranView, Notepad, etc?

IRFanView is not a Microsoft program.

Not fully accurate, but everything in your "Accessories" folder is a Windows program. Nothing else is and won't be included.