One of the biggest problems with Windows 7 is that the architecture is so radically different to XP as to make upgrading impossible.  You can only do a clean install if you want to move from one OS to the newer one.  The reason for this is that if Microsoft allowed you to upgrade “in-place”, the resulting OS would be so full of bugs and incompatibilities that it would never work for you.

Windows Easy Transfer goes some way to mitigating this, but it will only transfer files and some settings, not programs.  This is the important one as a huge volume of people are running older software on XP that they may have lost the installation disc for, or there’s a lot of software that’s fiddly to install, or one of any number of reasons why they will want the software they’ve used for years in XP, working in Windows 7.

This brings us back to the architecture problem.  Windows 7 is considerably more compatible with older software than Vista was, but not everything will run.  If you have a processor and motherboard that supports virtualisation then you can install XP Mode from Microsoft and install your software in that.

But this still means reinstalling everything, starting from scratch, everything’s a faff and it may not work anyway.

Then there’s Zinstall.

The way this new piece of software works is incredibly clever, so clever in fact that I can’t help but wonder why nobody thought of it before. 

When you install Windows 7, rather than format the drive you already have XP on, Zinstall tells you to simply install over the top of it.  The Windows 7 installer renames your XP installation windows.old and leaves it there just in case you need to retrieve any files.

What Zinstall does it take this old installation, complete with files and programs, and convert it into a virtual machine that can run from within your new copy of Windows 7, full-screen if you like.  What’s more you don’t need all the hardware virtualisation support that XP Mode needs either!

This means that you can enjoy Windows 7 and move your software to it in your own time, safe in the knowledge that you can continue working in XP, with all your existing software without a hitch.

It can also do this in a wide variety of ways.  In addition to the method I’ve already detailed you can migrate from an old PC using nothing more complex than a network cable or an existing network, or you can migrate from a hard drive containing your old copy of XP.

It doesn’t just do upgrading from XP either, supporting Vista, Linux, 32-bit to 64-bit, upgrading, downgrading, anything you need it to do.  Could this be the holy grail of Windows 7 upgrades?

Zinstall XP7 takes you from XP to Windows 7 with a single click. Your entire digital life is transferred – files, applications, settings, your desktop.

No spending days tediously reinstalling all applications, configuring them, copying data back and forth. Everything works just like it did before, and all your applications behave exactly the same as on the old system.

Upgrading your computer to Windows 7? Got a new computer and need to transfer everything from the old one? No matter the scenario, Zinstall XP7 will do the job!

So what are the downsides?  There are still some driver issues caused by XP in which the drivers can become corrupt, and unable to operate in the VM environment, while XP would merrily chug along not bothering to tell you.  There’s a helpful technical support line however with people who can help you through these issues.

It’s not what I’d call cheap either starting at $89 for a single licence, which would put off a lot of home users.  However I don’t see home users as being the target market for this product.  The people who would get the maximum benefit from this would be small to medium sized businesses.  The time you can save, not to mention the headaches and hassle, and the resulting money you’re not losing will pay for the product on it’s own.  Suddenly it’s looking like remarkable value for money, and much cheaper than paying someone to migrate you manually over a weekend.

The whole process will take half an hour or so, more if you have a lot of files in your XP installation, and is powered by doing nothing more than pressing a big blue button marked “Go”.

I was surprised when I tested it how little configuration there was to do.  You can exclude certain file types from being migrated, videos or documents for instance, but that’s the only options you get and, seemingly, the only ones you need.  As a power user I found it a little disconcerting but it’s incredibly simple to use.

So if you’re upgrading your system from XP to Windows 7 and you’re either worried about incompatibilities with software you absolutely cannot live without, or if any down-time will cost you money, this could well be the solution you’ve been looking for.