>OK, I've read all the messages and am a bit confused.
>
>I have a box where I'd like to test and play around with Windows 7.
>
>Suppose I have an existing box with Vista (machine has plenty of RAM and disk space, was purchased in late 2007)
>
>Of the items William listed, VS 2008 and SQL 2008 are alarming (if it's indeed true). VS 2008 is certainly not new, it RTMd in the fall of '07.
>
>If I scrub my machine clean, install Windows 7, will I be able to install VS 2008 (and then the latest CTP for 2010) as well as SQL 2008 Developer?
>
>Kevin

Run the *BETA* Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - it may give you some useful information along with irrelevent crap. I'd verify from your machine manufacturers' site that you have available drivers.

Installing from scratch is likely to give better results as long as you actually can get hardware drivers.

As far as Visual Studio or SQL Server goes, I'd plan to use another box or a virtual machine since apparently Microsoft doesn't support them or doesn't know what they are. Maybe they'll work on Windows 7 - Microsoft doesn't think so.

Looking around trying to find info about Visual Studio and Wondows 7, I saw an interesting article that said Visual Studio 2010 would be *32-bit ONLY*. If true, that shows how pathetic Microsoft has become considering for the last 5 years at least they have been pushing 64-bit O/S and applications (while not necessarily delivering).

http://www.ditii.com/2009/06/12/visual-studio-2010-will-be-32-bit-exclusive-no-64-bit/