The amount of information pouring out of Redmond these days about Windows 7 is unprecedented, and so is the level of enthusiasm. In a frantic attempt to make sense of it all, Maximum PC has been releasing our ongoing Feature Focus series, which hopefully, has helped you determine wither upgrading to Windows 7 is worth it for you. Once you made that decision however, or buy a new PC that’s upgrade eligible, do you know exactly what you’re getting? Can I upgrade from Windows XP? Do I need to buy the same product edition when upgrading? Can I go from 32 bit to 64 bit? These are just a few of the many questions we seek to answer after the jump.

Check out our Windows 7 Buyers Guide here!

The Basics

Release Date: October 22nd 2009

Qualifying OS’s For Upgrade: Windows 2000, XP, Vista

Qualifying OS For In-Place Upgrade: Vista

Upgrade Editions: Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate

System Requirements:

•    1GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

•    1GB RAM (32-bit) / 2GB RAM (64-bit)

•    16GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20GB (64-bit)

•    DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Read more via Windows 7 Upgrade Guide: All Your Questions Answered | Maximum PC.