| If you’ve ever attempted to upgrade your computer from an older version of Windows to a newer version, chances are you’ve sworn to never do it again. One of my previous attempts was so disastrous that I ended up having to purchase a new PC just so I could continue working.
That’s why I’m more than a little reluctant to try to upgrade my existing – working just fine, thank you – machine to Windows 7. However, a study released this week by Softchoice, a Toronto-based reseller, does offer some hope.
According to an analysis the company says it conducted of more than 450,000 corporate PCs, 88% are able to meet the minimum hardware system requirements to run Windows 7, set to be released on Oct. 22. This is in sharp contrast to a study Softchoice conducted prior to the release of Microsoft’s last operating system, Vista. At that time Softchoice determined only 50% of PCs were able to meet the requirements.
“We’ve seen a sea change compared to the landscape in which Vista was introduced,” Softchoice Development Manager Dean Williams, said in releasing the study. “Organizations have some work to do to shore up a small percentage of their fleet, but the natural PC refresh cycle has more or less eliminated system requirements as a potential stumbling block to deploying Windows 7.”
In fact, Williams said a migration to Windows 7 will be based more on corporations determining if the benefits are worth the cost of the upgrade rather than whether their systems can support the switch.
To perform its analysis Softchoice looked at the PC inventory at 248 organizations in the United States and Canada in a range of industries. It found that 65% of corporate PCs could make the upgrade to Windows 7 in its optimal configuration mode. That compared to only 6% of PCs that could make the upgrade to the advanced features of Windows Vista at the time of its release.
Of those PCs that cannot upgrade to the optimal mode of Windows 7, the majority would be able to do so with a basic RAM or hard disc upgrade. Softchoice determined that only 5% of PCs would require outright replacement in order to run the new operating system.
The findings of the study should provide some comfort to Microsoft which needs Windows 7 to be embraced by corporations after so few decided to make the upgrade to Vista.
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