Help ease the transition to new PC!

[turbo]

The new Dell XPS Studio 9100 has arrived. It has been about 8 years since I have migrated to a new PC, new OS, etc, and I am out of practice. I am migrating from XP SP3 to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, and I would like to be able to seamlessly integrate some old favorite apps into the new system. Is there a painless way to do this? I'm planning on keeping the old Dell Dimension 8400 as an emergency backup, but there are a LOT of installation disks and documentation that has gone missing, since my wife and I moved here about 6 years ago. Plus, I have no idea if W7HP has maintained backward compatibility to the XP OS. Any advice will be appreciated.

[Greg Bernhardt]

The new Dell XPS Studio 9100 has arrived. It has been about 8 years since I have migrated to a new PC, new OS, etc, and I am out of practice. I am migrating from XP SP3 to Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, and I would like to be able to seamlessly integrate some old favorite apps into the new system. Is there a painless way to do this? I'm planning on keeping the old Dell Dimension 8400 as an emergency backup, but there are a LOT of installation disks and documentation that has gone missing, since my wife and I moved here about 6 years ago. Plus, I have no idea if W7HP has maintained backward compatibility to the XP OS. Any advice will be appreciated.

There is no definitive answer. Some XP programs will work outright. Some need use of the compatibility mode features and some just won't work ever.

Try searching to see if MS has a record of your program here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx

Read up on the compatibility modes:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10436/using-program-compatibility-mode-in-windows-7/

[turbo]

Thanks, Greg. I may have to spring for some new software if I can't get things to work.