Questions have been flowing into Microsoft upgrade forums since the release of Win7. It seems a number of people have run into difficulties upgrading from Vista and many aren’t happy with the response from Microsoft.

As part of their marketing program, Microsoft offers some numbers to prove that moving to their new operating system will save you money. Now Gartner has taken a look at what it really costs to upgrade 2,500 machines in a hypothetical company.

Many large companies let others "beta test" Microsoft’s new offerings for them and wait for the first service pack to be released. Should you wait for the first Win7 service pack or jump in now?

If you bought a Win7 upgrade, aimed at college students, from Digital River be prepared. Microsoft is blaming "user confusion" for a lot of problems with this upgrade.

It’s out. In the U.S. an upgrade version costs $120. There are some interesting graphics for wallpaper and, if you have the graphics cards, you get the Aero interface. But. It’s still Windows, vector for all kinds of malware.

Checklists can be ever so useful. If your machine came with WinXP, you probably want to bite the bullet and buy new hardware with Win7 pre-installed.

The jury of public opinion didn’t go along with the reviewers who praised Vista. The problems of Vista still exist in Win7, Microsoft may have eased the pain but they didn’t eliminate it. And then there’s that little thing about no upgrade path from WinXP.

Apple’s OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard both run on the same Intel chips as Windows. Psystar Corp. is trying to blur the line further with their Rebel EFI installation software.

Some users in the U.K. got their copies of Win7 early and didn’t wait for the official launch-date to start installation. Early reviews are mostly positive.

When Microsoft opened their on-line store last year you could only buy Microsoft products. Now they’ve branched out to include laptops, netbooks, and even a desktop PC.