Would you recommend to use Office 2010 and how easy it's to switch from Office 2007 and what is the difference/gain?

I installed VS 2010 today (took me ~5+ hours to download again, yesterday's download was bad).

>I would like to share the road to Windows 7 which applied to me during the last week and some interesting points to it.
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>I had Windows XP Pro before. The goal was to move to Windows 7. Based on the setup I had, a fresh install was required. So, basically, it means that everything had to be installed after.
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>1. Memory issue
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>On the day I brought the PC at the shop, they suggested to me to move to 8 GB of RAM. I had 4 GB of RAM before. So, we did. When I got the PC after, it was nice to see more memory. But, after a while, I started to experience a lot of issues, 3 BOD, some programs that cannot start but on the second click only, and so on. Before, I was running without one BOD in 18 months. I had three in the same day yesterday. I also had about 40 fails when starting an icon and I had to click again a second time so it would run. Provided by the Universal Thread and some great helps from several members, several issues have been resolved. This one was resolved when I ran MemTest86, which was suggested by a member, so to find I had 38600 errors on the memory sims. When we changed that today, with the replacement of 4 new sims, the test went ok and I have been running on it as is for the entire day.
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>2. Software
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>I keep all my software in the d:\Software directory. However, as I run now under 64 bits, most of them had to be replaced with 64 bits versions. So, there was a lot of downloads and upgrade of actual licenses in order to achieve that.
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>3. LViewPro
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>LViewPro was upgraded to the 64 bits version. However, that one has a lot of problems with Twain. So, basically, it cannot recognize the scanner. I exchanged several emails with the support and they confirmed they do not have a version that would support that. So, I had to install as well LViewPro 32 bits which is then used for the scanner purposes.
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>4. Scanner
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>I had the CanoScan LIDE 20. However, that one is no longer supported under Windows 7. I exchanged a few emails with their support so to understand they would offer me a 10.00$ rebate if I would order a new one. Basically, for 10.00$, it was better for me just to go at Staples and buy it directly from there. Now, I have the CanoScan LIDE 100 and everything works as is. The old scanner was offered as a gift to a relative.
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>5. Happauge
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>For some kind of reason, the Happauge TV tuner doesn't work anymore. A new version was required. I downloaded the new version but the CD activation was required and will be sent by regular mail.
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>6. I moved from Visual Studio 2008 to Visual Studio 2010. It is still 32 bits but I took the occasion to move that software as well to a newer version. There is a lot of changes here and there. But, I was able to configure my environment as it was before. Note that the move to VS 2010 was done also in the week prior to the upgrade. I wanted to make sure that one was running ok on XP Pro. As a matter of fact, it was running so good, that the new compilation done with VS 2010, in regards to the DLL for my Web sites, resolved a serious issue I had when sending new updates to the server. Basically, before, many might have read those threads where I mentioned that sometimes, the IIS server wouldn't respond anymore when sending a new DLL. This has been resolved since then. Under Windows 7, it is still ok.
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>7. Office
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>I upgraded to Office 2010 64 bits. It runs fast.
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>8. IIS
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>That one was a little bit more difficult. Under Windows 7, this is IIS 7. The environment is totally changed. It took me a while to figure out where to go. I finally got it ok. Do not forget to enable the Web Service Extensions in IIS for .NET Framework 4.0. By default, this one would not be enabled. So, running the Web site as is, for any related .NET pages, would result in a page not found.
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>9. Snagit
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>Yup, Snagit was upgraded as well. They have a newer version so I thought that I would upgrade that one as well.
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>10. SQL Server 2008 R2
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>This upgrade was welcome. I did it to obtain the With Compression option when doing a backup. This is really great. I have no more need to compress the .bak into a .zip file with WinZip. The With Compression option is so compressed that there is practically no difference between the .bak and what a .zip version of it would be. So, it backups faster and that's it. The .bak file that it generates is good enough for me.
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>11. Upgrade of everything to .NET Framework 4.0
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>Started a week before on XP Pro, I consider that move to be part of this major migration as well. So, all my projects have been converted to .NET Framework 4.0. Note that some changes were required. Some unsupported option applies. For example, before with the System.Net.WebRequestMethods.Ftp.Rename was allowing us to rename using a full URI path. This is no longer supported. We can only use a relative path.
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>12. Browsers
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>I took backup of the cookie and favorite data from the old browser before doing the upgrade. Then, I was able to import them back in IE. As for FF and Google Chrome, I believe one or maybe the two ask for an import when doing the install.
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>13. Cisco VPN and things like that
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>Some VPN utility will simply no longer work in 64 bits. That would require adjustment at the firewall level so as having a new licence and software to be installed on your PC. That is also enabled with addition in DNS entries. You might want to reserve about two hours if that could apply to one of your installation to process that task.
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>14. Desktop and related issues
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>With the help I received here, I was able to adjust my desktop for various settings. In XP Pro, our wallpaper is reflected when we lock the desktop. This is not the default anymore. When locking the desktop, by default, many would qualify that as the ugly wallpaper (the blue one with some kind of flower in it). To change that, in order to have your wallpaper to be reflected there as well, a registry entry would need to be created and some tool to be used from the net. I had to negotiate with other situations like these. I remember that one for now.
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>15. Ghost it
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>Don't forget to ghost everything on a separate physical drive once the OS is installed. Then, I would recommend doing another ghost after the entire set of software and the entire configuration applied.
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>BTW, there are a tons of versions for every software are Microsoft. I do not know if we would see improvements in that one day. But, make sure you download the right version for what you have. For example, I downloaded the wrong version of SQL Server 2008 R2 and I lost about 2 hours. There are language version, various edition versions and 32 bits VS 64 bits. That is sometimes difficult to detect which one we need to use.
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>After 8 days and several nights, this is done. The result, ...............wow! It has never been so close to perfection. It runs fast, save me some time every day, cleaner, smoother, etc.