I was doing a bit of experiment to know whether my GP system with a near perfect production environment would respond positively for an upgrade from Windows Vista Business to Windows 7.0.

It did respond without much issues. The following are the list of issues which I faced. Though the following are not related to GP, these may help anyone out there upgrading to Windows 7.0 RC.

1. UAC never worked. Since I upgraded my system from Windows Vista Business to Windows 7.0 RC (which is an “Ultimate” version), there was a very critical issue once the upgrade completed. UAC did not work at all. I came to know about this when I tried installing my NIS2009 after upgrade.

2. I had two versions of SQL Server, 2005 & 2008. I could not make 2005 work on Windows 7.0 due to several reasons. But I was able to start and work on SQL Server 2008, though it did warn me of a possible compatibility issue.

3. GP 10.0 with SP3 (10.00.1193) worked merrily. I did not face any issues starting GP after upgrade. But I must admit that I did not check all possible details, such as Modifier/VBA customization, importing or exporting packages, etc. But, in my opinion, it should not be an issue to carry out these operations.

4. MS Office 2007 did not have any issues, as I had the latest SP installed for it.

5. Visual Studio 2005 did have some issues and it was also duly warned before even I started the upgrade.

Eventually, I had to revert my system back to Windows Vista Business, as I could not do any further installations (Windows 7.0 UAC did not work for some damn reason).

So, what does that mean? Is is possible for me to upgrade to Windows 7.0 without any issues? Answer is simple: YES I CAN. The only possible mistake that I could have done, is to UPGRADE instead of a CLEAN INSTALL. It does make a difference, since there are many softwares which are written to be compatible with Windows Vista but are yet to recognize Windows 7.0. The problem with Windows Vista users now, is the Softwares which they are using are compatible with Windows Vista and it is not compatible with Windows XP, apparently. But Windows 7.0 is designed to accomodate all XP compatible softwares and drivers without much fuzz. There is no word about the Softwares and Drivers which are compatible only with Windows Vista and that, in my opinion, is the actual problem.

Anyways, once the final retail version is released, I hope we can have a better OS with much more compatibility for all previous versions of Windows.

VAIDY