Microsoft has taken comprehensive steps in order to ensure that upgrading to Windows Vista is a smooth and streamline process. But not all resources are online. You don't have to do extensive searching and comparisons, you can bring it all down to your desktop. Microsoft has taken care of all details and has automated the process of evaluating your machine. You do not need to know anything in particular about your system configuration or about the hardware requirements of the six Windows Vista editions.

All you have to do is download and install Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor. The installation process is pretty much intuitive. All you have to do is to click either Next of Yes when prompted and that's about it. Once installed, the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will scan your system, analyze the configuration and present the evaluation conclusions. While the scanning takes place, you will be able to browse a comparison of the Windows Vista editions available.

The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will present the conclusions of the system analysis along with the result, whether your computer can run or cannot run Windows Vista. But at the same time it will do something much better. It will actually recommend the perfect edition of Windows Vista for your machine.

As you can see from the images at the bottom, the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor has concluded that the computer I tested, running Windows XP, will be able to run Vista and that Home Basic is the edition that will tailor fit the configuration.

The tool will also present details of the evaluation cataloged according to four categories: System, Devices, Programs and Tasks. As you can see, I could experience some issues with Windows Live Messenger.