Windows 7: Does my system meet minimum requirements??

I'm considering upgrading from XP (SP 3) to Windows 7. Read the requirements and seem to meet them all except I'm not sure about the graphics. Computer is just shy of five years old. It has Pentium CPU @ 3 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 260+ GB of free hd space. Graphics card is GeForce 7300 LE, DirectX ver 9.0c. Don't know how to tell if driver is WDDM 1.0 or higher.

Two questions:
1) How can I tell if my graphics card/driver meet or exceed the minimum? and
2) If so, is this upgrade advisable, given the age of my system?

Can't help wondering how much longer Microsoft will continue to support XP and how much longer new software will run on it...

Would appreciate feedback...

Hi,

Welcome to Seven Forums.

You could download the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor and see if that helps
Download details: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

Regards,
JDobbsy1987

Check your PC with the Upgrade Advisor:

Download details: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor

I believe Win XP Support ends 2012.

If I were you I would stick with XP on that system and buy a new one next year with Windows8. Your specs are borderline and you may not like what you see when running Windows 7.

I have a machine with a Pentium 4, 3.00GHz CPU, 2.5GB DDR memory which runs 7 great. I believe this machine is about 4-5 years old.

Thanks to all. Saw the link to the Upgrade Advisor after I posted this question. To "whs" -- I tend to agree. My gut tells me this pc will not handle the increased demands gracefully. Will probably stick with XP for now, and get a new system next year.

That's higher than my test rig. Pentium 4, 2.4GHz CPU, 2GB ram

Official Microsoft support for Windows XP professional ends on April 8th, 2014, but no bug fixes nor new software will be released for XP (since April 2009), only security patches. Office 2010 was released with support for XP SP3 (only x86, not XP x64 or Server 2003), but it was an aberration (likely due to the fact XP was still the world's most popular OS at the time, and Office the world's most popular office suite) and the next version of Office will not support XP, and we've already seen IE9 not support XP.

Also, and further to your question, XP has dropped it's market share from almost 59% of the entire OS market in May 2010 to just a hair over 45% in May 2011 (and shrinking at about 1.2% per month), whereas Windows 7 is up to 34% in May 2011 (up from 13% in May 2010) and growing at about 1.75% per month - meaning it will take over as the most popular OS in 4 - 6 months if the numbers stay relatively the same month over month.

Your hardware is fine for Windows 7 - even that GeForce 7300LE will get over a 3 in the Graphics and Gaming scores for the Windows Experience Index, more than enough to run Aero fine on a single monitor without issue. If you can get a copy of Windows 7 cheaply, it's probably worth the upgrade from XP if no applications are holding you back. You probably want to wait on new hardware for Windows 8, as that's a good excuse to upgrade .

The 7300 LE is on the list of supported graphics cards for the latest Windows 7 drivers (275.33):

NVIDIA DRIVERS 275.33 WHQL

It looks like the card would fully support Windows 7.

Windows 7 may run OK on your system. I can't tell you whether that would be worth $120 to you (US upgrade price for Home Premium).