Confused about Windows 7 upgrade options?

If you're thinking about performing an upgrade to Windows 7, make sure you understand your options. A few upgrade charts have recently emerged and they may not be too helpful unless you understand what the chart is trying to explain. The bottom line is that you can't directly upgrade from XP to Windows 7 (unless you upgrade to Vista with SP 1, and then upgrade again to Windows 7).

• "In-Place Upgrade" - you can "upgrade" directly on top of your existing operating system. You won't have to reinstall your applications and you keep all your files.
  
• "Custom Install" - clean installation where you'll have to reinstall all your applications.
  

If you're running Vista, then you can easily upgrade to Windows 7. However, you must upgrade to the same version (Home/Basic, Business/Professional, and Ultimate) if you want to use the "in-place upgrade" option. Otherwise, you have to perform a custom install (clean install) and you have to reinstall all your applications.

I'm a big fan of clean installations over upgrades. That's what I'll be doing when I get my disks.