I'll keep it short. Bought a Dell refurbished Latitude D620 laptop with WinXP. I must have a stand alone PC due to two biz programs that don't support MAC. I have been using Imac for awhile now. Don't say, dual boot... there are printing problems with this with the two biz software programs.

So, I bought the laptop and it's no good. Mousepad doesn't work, DVD drive broke, bad screen, etc. I will send it back. But I gotta have a PC right now, I cannot wait until October 22 when Win7 comes out. I have posted befor eabout my reservation with Vista. But I can buy any number of machines this right now locally with Vista. I am not aware of any WinXP machines locally.

Anticipating that Win7 will be as good as they say it is, what do you think about buying a Vista laptop, anticipating doing the upgrade to Win7. I would look for a free upgrade, I think I have seen deals like that. Bottom line is I gotta buy either a WinXP machine (which likely means ordering online) or buy a Vista machine locally.

Bill, You can upgrade from Vista to Win 7 but iff you can't wait there's an alternative as well. I'm respsonsible for purchasing PCs for the law firm I work for. Since we have very proprietary software I need Win XP Pro not Vista. I purchased 2 desktop computers this week with Windows XP Pro from HP Direct Laptops are avaliable as well from not only HP but Dell. You really need to call direct and not purchase thru a Best Buy or a retail outlet. I have a contact at HP you can call, but you don't necessarily need him. A call to HP or Dell insisting you need XP Pro and that you cannot wait until Oct 22. If you'd like his name I can give it to you and not only will you get a fair price but you'll also get XP Pro with a free coupon for the Win 7 upgrade. E-mail me if you'd like the info.

Good luck

Now is not the best time to buy but if you have no choice then there are deals on everywhere at the moment that come with a free upgrades to Win7 when it's out. So just make sure you get one of those.

When your ready to upgrade to Win7 I believe there are 2 options when installing the OS udpate. Option 1 is to keep all your programs and settings and upgrade to Win7. Basically it will import everything from Vista.


The second option is to overwrite Vista and to install a fresh copy of Win7.

Option 2 is better even though this means you will have to reinstall all your programs again. Option 1 is wayyyyyy slowerrrrrr and can take hours for Win7 to install and then there are always the unforeseen problems that might arise.

Regards
James

[QUOTE] I must have a stand alone PC due to two biz programs that don't support MAC.

Buy a Do it yourself kit from Tiger Direct with XP pro Service pack 3 Should fix you up fine for some time.

Jerry

I'm gonna wait until they start shipping pc's with win 7 I've never had any luck updating over an old operating system.
I'm not saying it won't work, just that I find it easier, with less fooling around to wait for a clean install of a new op system with a machine made for that system.

I am in the same situation. I have a Dell pc coming in next week with Vista SP-1 Home Premium. I have the Win 7 upgrade option. In view of what James says , I am wondering if I load just a few small programs , it would take proportionately less time to upgrade using option one , or do a clean sweep. In other words , I would find it disapointing not to use the machine at all until Win 7 is available.
Bernie