Hi David,

Here is what happened so far. My Win 7 upgrade came from Dell in the form of 2 DVDs. According to very brief instructions I had to run the first DVD and then - when prompted - the second one. I kept starting the upgrade procedure of the first DVD but it kept stopping without giving my any message. After reading some stuff on Dell forum I think that the 1st DVD was to check if my PC has all components and software compatible with Win 7. And maybe it found not compatible problem but forgot to tell me <g>. So what I finally did is put the second DVD in the drive which started SETUP of Windows 7 Installer. I chose the option of deleting/removing all previous version of Windows (which I believe the installer said would be saved in some Windows.old folder). Then Windows 7 setup went through the installation without a glitch. I can see that when I start the PC now it has Windows 7 installed and none of the old programs I had (which is fine as I can easily install them). I have not tested all functionality to be sure that Windows 7 works 100% (or 90% - after all this is MS product <g>). I will play with it tomorrow just to see if everything works. So this is the story so far.

I hope your daughter does not get arrested and you have happy holidays.

>Dmitry,
>
>If you have the original OS install disks, the risk of wiping the drive and starting over is pretty minimal, you can always reinstall Vista, then try the Win7 upgrade.
>
>I'm curious how it turns out I'll be upgrading my daughter's notebook when she comes home for Christmas assuming she doesn't get arrested for participating in the protests over the excessive fee increases at UCLA...
>