Having recently bought a Dell mini laptop, I really wanted to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7 as soon as possible and that’s exactly what I did. After reading some reviews about the “ease” of upgrading from Vista, I thought the whole process was going to be a piece of cake. I was wrong! What I thought was going to be an hour and a half session turned into a five hour nightmare!

I planned the entire update around the dinner plans I had made that night (chicken schnitzel at the pub around the corner) based on these reviews, and thus spent a full hour and a half getting the job done. This was at 6:30 pm 50 minutes had passed and the update was still in her “Files and Documents Collection” sitting at only 9%. I looked at the clock counting down the minutes until dinner time not expecting the update to finish in the so-called recommended 80 to 90 minutes.

I quickly took a shower, curing my 30 GB of iTunes music as the cause of this accumulation of files, for the delay. Then I cursed the reviews for not pointing out to me that I should have at least deleted my iTunes library. Quickly vacuum. I quickly made a call to my mother in Ireland. I quickly yelled in frustration because once again I had been duped into thinking that a non-technical person could do this update on their own.

I was all set to go out and meet my friend, 105 minutes had passed and there was still no sign that my Windows 7 upgrade was done. I had my roommate keep an eye on things and figured I’d just enter the product license key when I got back. Horror hit me when I came back from dinner 90 minutes later (total time so far = 255 minutes) and it was still processing. Just 60 minutes later he got to the second part of my contribution to the process, which was the aforementioned entry of the product key registration.

The next part of the update “flew by”. It only took a full 60 minutes (at the time I was falling asleep at my keyboard) until its last reboot and there, finally after 3 months, 2 days and 375 minutes of waiting, I had Windows 7 in front of me. Note to self and to all of you who are about to upgrade. Delete your files, particularly your iTunes library and pictures (yes, the 1,000 you’ve taken but never look at), before upgrading. I think the nightmare of 5 hours of frustration can be alleviated if it is done!

Aside from finding the system to work from time to time, I love the multiple window views for each of the apps you have open. Microsoft has eliminated a lot of “what does this do?” functions outside of the Control Panel and left us with a fairly intuitive screen of customization options to suit your needs.

Having used it for more than 3 weeks, I must say that I am happy as a satisfied user despite the agony of the update. I would recommend Windows 7 especially to those who are still using Windows XP. Last but not least, if you follow my file deletion tips, even the least technical of you could do this update yourself! Yes I say it seriously!