As Microsoft launched Windows 7 at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden, Which? and the Consumers Association were advising: "Don't buy Windows 7 for at least a year"
 
The launch was a curiously amateur, end of the pier concert party, affair.

As speakers got up on stage and spoke, there was often no name or title on the projection screens.

Our hearts went out for Griff Parry of BSkyB who came on three times - yes three - to try and demonstrate how Sky Player works with Windows 7.

On each occasion the Internet connection failed. When Parry tried Plan B, playing a pre-recorded demo, Microsoft's video crew fumbled to put the pictures on the large screens.
 
Parry handled a difficult situation very well and must have been wishing that Sky had been staging the event instead of Microsoft.
 
(A week later poor Parry was stuck in the same embarrassing position again when Microsoft told journalists to arrive at 11.45 am for a prompt start noon demo of Sky on the Xbox; after more than half an hour’s delay due to another “technical glitch” Parry again had to play a pre-recorded demo.)
 
At the Windows 7 launch, Jeremy Fennell of DSG was delightfully frank: "In three weeks we have sold more pre-order copies of Windows 7 than we sold of Vista in the whole of the last year. Our research shows that 60 per cent of our customers have been delaying their purchases until Windows 7."
 
Microsoft promises easy direct upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, but there is no such path from XP, and the easy upgrade only applies when the upgrade is between "like" versions. For XP and unlike versions (e.g. from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Home Premium) a "clean install" is needed that over-writes the original.
 
Out of the 66 upgrade scenarios outlined by Microsoft, only 14 are supported by for direct upgrade.
 
Said John Curran, Microsoft’s director of Worldwide Windows channel marketing: "We wanted a seamless upgrade from Vista and found it was more difficult for XP. Some PCs will be more than ten years old anyway, so their owners will want to replace them."
 
Said Julie Larson-Green, VP Windows Experience: "It's like replacing the engine in a car. If the car is old, it is easier to replace the car than the engine."
 
My experience of upgrading from XP to Windows 7 on a high spec XP machine bought just over 3 years ago was far from easy, with the installation from disc process offering no advice on how to transfer programs and settings.

Hardware, such as a TV tuner, wireless card and USB serial network adaptor did not work.

Syncing Cardscan database software with a Windows Mobile device is not yet possible.
 
Carphone Warehouse now runs the AOL email system in the UK and even on the day Windows 7 officially went on sale, there was still no AOL software that works with Windows 7.
 
(AOL's password check fails giving the error message 47-AC-0000.)
 
Carphone Warehouse's AOL helpline in India admitted "It's not compatible".
 
Helpline advice to use One Click Fixes is no use either because it's not compatible. Neither is the Quick Restore function.
 
How astonishing that with all the advance publicity for Win 7, and 8 million Beta copies of Win 7 out in the field, Carphone Warehouse and AOL were still not ready.
 
After the Question and Answer session, I was berated and sworn at by a Guardian journalist because I had asked about upgrading an existing PC to Windows 7.
 
"Everyone in this room knows how to upgrade Windows" he ranted. "They do it all the time."
 
Yes, but press people are not the people who will be buying Windows 7 and finding that they have lost their installed programs, files and settings when they install over an older version of Windows.

That's why Currys.digital is charging to help people transfer their stuff.
 
It's also why software company Laplink is promoting a new paid-for program called Pcmover to do what Microsoft makes so horribly difficult.

Barry Fox