OK, I want to finally bite the bullet and upgrade XP to Win7, but I'm unsure of how to go about the "upgrade" without destroying my apps and user settings from XP. I'm looking at this Win7 Pro upgrade from MacMall... will it work to 'upgrade' or will I have to create a new vm? I'm also looking to 'upgrade' to Office 365 but I'm confused about it being able (or not) to run on both my Mac (I have Office 2011) and under a Win7 vm in Parallels - I'm looking at this (again from MacMall) but although it's a 5-computer license, I don't know if I can use it cross-platform (i.e., use it on my Mac as well as Win7) - MS has been no help in answering this question. If anyone can help me out with just one of my questions, I would be grateful. Clinton
Upgrading from XP to Win 7 (and Office 365 questions...) No - I just winged it... lost all applications, settings, etc. I'm SO much more accustomed to Macs where a new OS upgrade doesn't destroy everything! In the end, it was OK - just had to start all over again. And BTW, I did subscribe to Office 365 - feels funny to 'subscribe' to software but, according to various EULA, you never actually 'own' software anyway. Clinton
Thanks........ I only need Windows OS to run Windows Publisher that I've used for many years to do a newsletter. I've tried many publishing software packages for the Mac but all I've tried have fallen short as to what I'm used too. I've found that I need to go from XP to Vista to 7 in order to upgrade and not have to reload programs (I do use other Windows only software from time to time) that I used for many many years that have been downloaded, customized and upgraded many times and would be a nightmare to start over. Thanks again......Bob
Clinton, With regard to your Office 365 question. Microsoft considers each independent copy of an operating system to be a separate platform. MS doesn't officially recognize products such as Parallels by crediting the computer hardware with only one license for its MS products. A hint here is the information in Microsoft's Office 365 description where it tell you that the software version numbers for the products included in the Office 365 suite could have different version numbers. The Mac version and the Windows version of Office 365 would be installed separately and licensed separately as well. Albert
