From Wikipedia –

“Standard upgrade editions

Windows 7 supports upgrading from an applicable version of XP, and Vista to an applicable version of Windows 7 via Upgrade Editions. The options mean that users can update freely from any previous version to any of the new three retail editions of Windows 7: Home Premium, Professional, or Ultimate (plus in Europe, and possibly South Korea, these Upgrade Editions also come in optional N versions). Discounted upgrade pricing is only available to current users of XP or Vista.”

If you live in the United Kingdom, you will have to pay £99.99 for Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade, £189.99 for Windows 7 Professional Upgrade, and £199.99 for Windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade.

Window 7 was designed for modern computers. In other words, you can install Windows 7 on older computers but it will not provide good performance. Older processors are comparatively slow when compared to modern processors. For example, Pentium 4 is significantly slower when compared to Core2Duo processors. If you install Windows 7 on a Pentium 4-based computer, you may experience some sluggish performance.

You also need a good graphic card to be able to run all the visual effects provided by Windows 7. Modern motherboards come with more powerful integrated graphic cards. For example, the motherboard that I’m currently using comes with 512 MB of video memory. This is more than sufficient to run all the visual effects that come with Windows 7. If you install Windows 7 on an older computer, you may experience slow performance and may not be able to run Aero effects.

If you have an older computer, it is better not to try to install Windows 7 or Windows Vista on it. A better option would to be upgrade your computer. However, if your computer is many years old, there’s little you can upgrade and even if you can upgrade it won’t be worth the investment. It is better to convert such computers to file servers or Linux machines or use them as hobby machines.

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

1) Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

2) In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK.

3) At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS.

4) Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).

Gnumeric can help you keep track of information in lists, organize numeric values in columns and rows, perform and update complex calculations by defining each step of the calculation and modifying particular steps subsequently, create and display or print graphical plots of data using bar plots, line graphs, pie charts or radar charts, implement complex optimization modeling or perform many other tasks involving numbers, dates, times, names or other data.

Gnumeric has undergone significant amounts of testing. A diverse group of users evaluates Gnumeric in a wide variety of environments. Testing workbooks are used to assess the mathematical correctness of the calculations and to validate the quality of the file importers. For this reason, the software is very stable and reliable.

Gnumeric is free software in the sense of giving its users several freedoms related to the program including the freedoms to use, modify and redistribute the program. Gnumeric is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

Everyone can have access to the source code used to create Gnumeric. This code is explicitly maintained and documented to make it easy for anyone to modify in any way they choose. This makes it possible to modify the spreadsheet, write custom routines or extend Gnumeric for special needs.

Gnumeric is available on a number of platforms. Most Linux distributions come with Gnumeric by default and you can install it if not. Gnumeric is also available for Windows Xp, Vista and Windows 7.

More information: www.gnome.org/gnumeric