Take the guesswork out of choosing your Vista upgrade path - Information Systems Protection

When you consider upgrading to a new operating system (OS), you certainly wonder if your current computer hardware and applications are compatible with that OS. Vista upgrade considerations bring the same concerns — and you shouldn’t wait until after you’ve purchased the upgrade to find out how your system will fair. Fortunately, you can run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor for a quick analysis of your hardware as well as recommendations on what Vista edition is for you. Bonus: We’ll clue you in to the best ways to find out if your applications will work on Vista.

Understand what Upgrade Advisor does
To run Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, you must download and install it on every computer you plan to upgrade.

When Advisor runs on a workstation, it scans the computer’s hardware and then recommends a Vista edition based on the scan. It also gives specifics about any problems it sees, including basic application compatibility problems.

Put Advisor to work
Downloading and running the analyzer is a straightforward process. To download it, simply point your browser to www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/upgradeadvisor/default.mspx and click on the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor link in the middle of the page. Once installed, you’re ready to run it.

Note: You may have to install MSXML 6.0 Parser
prior to installing the Upgrade Advisor.

To scan your system with the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor, make sure you first connect every hardware device you want to use with that computer and Vista, such as printers or USB thumb drives, to the computer. Then run through the Advisor tool by launching it from All Programs and stepping through the prompts to start the scan. When the Scan Complete indicator appears, click the See Details button.

The resulting page reports if your computer can run Vista, and which version you should purchase for it. You can also click any available See Details button to open the Report Details window. Select a tab on that page for details related to the System, Devices, Programs, and Task List.

Ensure application compatibility
In addition to determining your hardware’s ability to run Vista, you need to know if your applications can run with it. Advisor gives you some program compatibility information. We recommend you contact the vendor for your critical applications because many vendors began testing their apps months ago and can tell you the status.

Take advantage of compatibility tools
Microsoft offers several tools to test for application compatibility and to help your legacy apps work with Vista.

If you plan to roll out Vista to more than a few computers, you might consider using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, version 5 (ACT). With ACT, you can create and install a package on all of your computers. Use it to inventory all apps on company computers and analyze their compatibility. ACT works best for larger organizations where it’s more cost effective to configure an ACT server and package than to stop by every computer to check which apps are installed.

Once you upgrade a computer to Vista, the Windows Vista Program Compatibility Assistant runs in the background to resolve application compatibility issues that arise. Vista also comes loaded with the Program Compatibility Wizard so you can manually work with Vista to choose compatibility modes for your apps. Print this post