I finally found the time to wipe out my dual-boot Vista/XP drive ... delete the partitions and install Windows 7. Everything went better than expected, considering the "deleting the partitions" part ... buy kudos to Microsoft on simplifying that process. Two simple clicks once I booted from the install disk and followed the instructions (clean install).
Once installed I don't find Win7 much different than Vista ... just takes a little time getting things set the way you want them. However the real test is installing/using the programs I previously used ... including some rather old ones = 1998 ... and to my surprise all but one program worked just fine.
Sadly some of these other vendors leave a lot to be desired ... my ATI (raedon x1300) video card does not have a vendor version driver update for Win7 ... so I'm stuck using the version supplied during the Win7 install. It works just fine but you'd think a card purchased a little more than a year ago would still be supported.
The internal motherboard soundcard (Realtek) didn't work = "issue in Action Center" but once I visited Windows Update ... there it was under optional updates. Installed rebooted and no more issues in the Action Center ... without any interaction on my part.
I found the "Windows® Experience Index" didn't change much from Vista to Win7 ... Vista = 3.5, Win7 = 3.4, nothing to brag about but it's an old but reliable machine.
The changes to "ReadyBoost" were a nice surprise ... Microsoft ReadyBoost "now works with most flash storage devices in Win7 and supports up to 8 devices and up to a maximum 256gb of additional memory". Imagine that! ... I stuck 2 compatible flash drives in the back of the machine, set both (4gb, 2gb) to dedicated ReadyBoost, and forget about them, as you can reboot, etc. without disconnecting them ...
Without tweaking any settings (yet ;) my broadband (Comcast) connection speed was measured at 19.08 mbps download and 9.08 upload ... not bad for an old clunker!
Everything else seemed to install without any quirks ... Office/FrontPage 2003 is what I still use for editing/creating pages on my site ... just don't ever forget where you put product keys that you haven't used in about 5 yrs! ...
Overall it was it was a rather uneventful experience ... compared to the old days (Win95/ME/XP, etc) oh I'm sure there will be a few things that bug me about Win7, but it's worth the upgrade from previous versions, just for the improved security aspects ...
I'll be putting up a new page on my site about installing the HOSTS file in Win7 ... which by-the-way works just fine. Simply right-click the included installer (mvps.bat) and select: "Run as Administrator" from the menu, and it will backup your existing version and copy the updated version ...
Note: I haven't tried this in Win7x64 yet, so I'm not sure if I'll need to do something different there?