Pretty big upgrade....suggestions please!

ok, so I am think about moving from XP to Win 7 and upgrading from Sonar 8 (not8.5) to X1. I have a Dell XPS 410 dual core processor (2.53ghz I think) and 2 gigs of ram. How does Win 7 seem to be working for X1? Should I go with Win7 Pro, Home, etc...just any little tid bits of info will help. I want as much info from first hand users and their experiences before I make the investment. Thanks Cakers!

David

P.S. If this has been extensively covered, someone can also point me to thread, instead of me starting a rehash!

The consensus seems to be to use Windows 7 64 Pro Get that going on your PC and then do the X1 install.

 
Installing Win7 first is a necessity in this case, because you can't upgrade XP to Win7; you have to do a clean install. Also, I think most will agree Home Premium is just fine, unless you foresee needing to run more than 16GB RAM, which I'm sure that motherboard can't even do. Other than the 192GB RAM limit, I don't think there's anything that Pro can do that Home Premium can't that is germane to running a DAW.
 
And speaking of RAM, I wouldn't do the Win7 upgrade without upgrading to at least 4GB. Win 7's kernal uses more RAM than XP, and things will be getting a little marginal for SONAR at 2GB.

I don't really see the "big upgrade" here.. it can turn out to be a downgrade for you..
1st of all,.. XP runs great.. it's one of the best os around, it's not eating resources like vista or, a bit less, win 7.
Before you worry about how Win7 works with X1, you should check if you hardware is capable of running Win7x64. There's a tool available that checks this for you (although its not checking x64bit compatibility, which can be more often the problem). With a 64bit os you should have at least 4GB of ram to justify the upgrade.. Using more then 3,5GB of ram is, most of the time, the reason to jump on a 64bit os.
As I said before, Win7 is a bit hungry concerning resources,. and your pc might be just a bit too much on the lower end of handling that os.
Win7 finds most drivers on its own,.. I'd check if x64-drivers are available for the hardware.
Also keep in mind that Win7 lost a lot of functionality.. The only things left are a calculator and a text-editor! So if you don't have a dedicated DAW, you need to reinstall a lot of tools/software to get back to a state that you've been before with XP..

Sonar X1 changed the size of the gui a bit,.. trying to make it fit on large displays running really high resolutions. (1920 and higher).. so that would be the next issue you might run in to.. (although someone here runs it with a 1300-res. and is highly comfortable with it..)