Microsoft Windows 7 is getting some good sale figures and if you also planning to get switched on the new operating-system now you can test and learn the new features online right from your web-browsers - thanks to newly introduced Windows 7 Test Drive service from Microsoft which allows users and developers to experience Windows 7 running live on Microsoft servers in an safe virtual test-drive environment accompanied with supporting step-by-step walkthrough videos of it's features.

The free test-drive resource requires no special software installation and runs inside your web-browser (Internet Explorer) and needs a single Active-X installation to get started.

If you jumped onto Microsoft Windows 7 pre-release version (Beta or RC) you can't upgrade to the final RTM version and need to do an clean install loosing all your settings and installed application as Windows 7 setup won't let you upgrade from a pre-release version to final build displaying error as below.

Luckily there is a simple config-file hack which allows you to do an in-place upgrade from Windows 7 pre-release to final version keeping your files, settings and applications intact.

In some weird move by Microsoft their latest operating-system Windows 7 does not support in-place upgrade from their most widely used operating system - Windows XP, lack of this upgrade path prevented many like me from migrating to Windows 7 but here is some ray of hope with Laplink announcing in-place upgrade support to Windows 7 from Windows XP in upcoming release of their popular PC migration utility PCMover.

Microsoft Windows 7 is still in preview stages but has already gained quite a substantial amount of users trying its first beta, if you are willing to try the new beta without taking any risk with your existing computer configuration, installing it on a virtual machine is the best option, the whole process is very safe and takes around 40 minutes to get completed on a decently powered P4 computer.

A virtual machine installation lets you try Windows 7 inside your existing OS as a guest operating-system, Both Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and Sun VirtualBox can be used for this purpose, I will be using Sun VirtualBox for this demonstration.

1. Download and install Sun VirtualBox if not already done.
2. Download and obtain a license key for Microsoft Windows 7 Beta using instructions provided in the earlier post here.
3. Now launch VirtualBox and click the New button to start setting up our Windows 7 virtual machine.