I would really like to upgrade my OS from Windows XP Professional to Windows 7 on my only laptop: Acer Travelmate 2434LCi but I'm not quite sure if it's the right choice. Please tell me if I should do it or not. Specs: Intel Celeron M 380 1.6GHz, 400MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache 60GB HDD 4200 RPM 1,5GB DDR 333MHz If I should not, please advice me with cheap upgrades to make the laptop perform better?
What you should do is what you want to do. Have you checked the Acer website to see if there are Windows 7 drivers available for your model? If there are, then you just need to make a decision. I prefer 7 to XP and many on this forum do. But when it comes to "should" only you can decide.
While that is very much true indeed, what I was asking was would the specs of this laptop be enough to run Windows 7 smoothly without any problems?
I would personally leave windows XP on it considering you have such low CPU specifications. A Celeron is not a very good CPU to begin with. Windows 7 alone require 1 GB minimum to run also.
According to my quick search of the Acer website, Windows XP is the only supported OS and only those drivers are available. But, I'm running, very successfilly, Windows 7 on two rather low end Netbooks (Asus and Toshiba) so you may be able to run it acceptably well on your computer with just the drivers Windows provides. You might find more info on your computer by visiting the Acer website, doing your own more extensive search on your model and seeing all they might have to say. You can also contact Acer and pose your question to them. There may be unpublished Windows 7 drivers. But based solely on what I found on the Acer website, and your machine's rather low end cpu, I agree with anarchist9027; you should not attempt an installation of Windows 7.
I am running Windows 7 very successfully on a Dell D610 which seem to have similar specs to your Acer. I used a Vista driver for the graphics card, but that was the only driver needed. Try going to the Acer TravelMate 2430 Series on the Acer support page and you will find a Vista driver there You could try getting a second cheap hard drive on e-Bay, swap over the drives and trying an install on the new one. Then your original XP installation will be safe. If you permanently swap over then you will also have a second backup drive! You can't lose really!