If you’re considering upgrading your Windows operating system to Windows 7, and you’re not already a Windows Vista user, you’ll be in for a few surprises – mostly pleasant. Overall, the upgrade process from Vista is easy, but if you skipped Vista and are now trying to move to Windows 7, the process of upgrading will take longer and require more technical skills, especially in the area of Windows drivers.

XP Has No Direct Upgrade Path

If you’re running Windows XP or an earlier version of the operating system, there is no direct upgrade path to Windows 7. That means you’ll need to do a “clean installation.” That involves backing up your data and reinstalling your applications. While this might seem like a daunting task, it will give you the opportunity to evaluate all of the software in your current load. My advice? If you don’t need it, don’t reload it.

For your hardware, you’ll need to do a little research to determine whether your manufacturer has released and updated driver. If so, Windows 7 will often (but not always) install it for you. In itself, this is a time-saver. Dealing with old or missing drivers can be exceptionally time-consuming. Even with the right drivers, things don’t always go smoothly.

The installation process has a few hitches in it, most noticeably one that places the computer in an infinite mid-installation rebooting loop under certain circumstances. This isn’t the universal experience by any means. I upgraded my computer at home (running Vista) in just a few hours with no real issues. Getting the remaining drivers installed and configured, which would have taken an additional evening, was handled by Driver Detective.

I always recommend driver management software. Driver Detective, which has been downloaded and installed by more than a million users, locates, downloads and installs updated drivers for any computer system. After installing the correct drivers, Driver Detective watches over the computer’s drivers, ready to replace old, outdated, corrupted or missing drivers instantly without additional assistance from you.

Finding and installing drivers is among the least-rewarding tasks associated with computer maintenance. Driver updates often sneak up on you, following upgrades and patches. If you don’t have the time to search for updated drivers for your computer, I recommend that you consider letting Driver Detective do the heavy lifting for you.

Photo Credit: Cheon Fong Liew, via Flickr