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#11
The OP's notebook certainly can run well enough under Win 7...whether "better" (faster?) may be a question, but it will run well enough.
The question is why upgrade it? Unless you need to run something that will not run under XP Pro, there is pretty much no "bang for the buck" upgrading from XP Pro to win 7 in an older computer.
BTW, I am saying this as one who has upgraded a 2 1/2 year old HP Pavillion notebook from Vista to Win 7. Contrary to all the hoopla, as a properly maintained Vista SP2 machine, Windows 7 mildly...VERY MILDLY, runs a tad crisper...no big night and day difference. Now, I DO like Windows 7, very much so, but was it "worth" upgrading to from Vista? Truthfully, No! I do not regret it, as I simply wanted to do it, but I am also being honest in that there was no compelling reason to upgrade aside of having wanted to do so...
P.S. This was a "clean" upgrade from Vista 32 bit Home Premium to Win 7 64 bit Home Premium, so there was no "hang-over" from the old OS.
I have a similar laptop (zv6270us). Only difference I saw was the CPU. I updated to Windows 7 64bit RC as a trial and had a few driver problems but found fixes. There are no 64bit drivers for Sound, Card Reader and Modem. I was able to find compatible 64bit Vista drives that worked. Had to do a minor hack on the sound driver but it worked. I went back to XP when RC expired but since I am now using Win 7 64bit on my new Desktop I plan to update the Laptop. Makes it easier to keep them both the same. I went with 64bit and it seemed to have more zip. I think the Win 7 64bit is a more mature OS and can take advantage of the CPU.
Jim
Thanks everyone :)
Decided to both keep XP and install 7 (32bit). XP on the 250GB drive & 7 on the original, but still good, 80GB drive. Easy enough to pop the drive in and out on the laptop. Sticking with the 32bit for driver availability, low ram and older app compatibility.
In my opinion you have made right decisions.
With a bit older rig and only 2 gigs of RAM, you would not benefit from 64-bit Windows. For the same reasons, virtualization (XP Mode etc.) would not work so well so to maintain app compatibility, dual boot system is better.
Good luck, don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions regarding installation.
Kari
Here's an excellent tutorial, at the link below.
Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP
Didn't want to dual boot the laptop. My desktop is a multi-boot machine and I wished to keep the laptop with one os per drive.
Installed 7 x86 on the older hard drive. Drivers weren't too hard to find and performance (with Aero) rivals that of many of my newer dual core computers even though the performance index rated the old laptop 2.6 (graphics).
Installation didn't take nearly as long as I expected either.
I will keep XP on the newer drive for old time sake
2 gigs of ram is plenty for windows7. The processor is more than fast enough too.
http://windows.microsoft.com/systemrequirements