Introduction

This article summarizeds XP to Win7 migration recommendations.   As in any major OS release migration, plan on installing the OS (Win7) on a new drive, get it all working and then move old required data to it as suggested below.

(0) verify that your machine and devices are ready for Win7 (get MB, video card, NIC, printer win7 drivers)
(1) take an inventory of your data - directories, data and buy a terabyte drive for backup
(2) make a physical list of all critical system info (license keys, userids, passwords, router password & LAN info, hardware, drivers)
(3) export router setup (firewall, services, dhcp, encryption, etc)
(4) make a physical list of device driver URLs for Win7 (download drivers before the migration starts)
(5) collect all application solutions (MS office, email client, IM client, firewalls, editors, etc) DVDs)
(6) backup all needed data (physical directories are easier than using specialized utilities such as Acronis)
(7) restore a protion of your data to make sure the process works
(8) run disk file error check on all drives
(9) nuke the drive designated for the Win7 OS files
(10 partition the drive designated for the Win7 OS and make it bootable & active
(11) run the Win7 installer from DVD and install Win7; activate Win7
(12) verify Win7 is working (connected to Internet and all devices)
(13) reinstall applications referring to licenses saved in step 2 above
(14) copy data from backup to Win7 drives
(15) verify operation of each application
(16) verify that all data is accessible
(17) defrag machine

Links

Upgrading to Windows 7: steps and checklist - good set of steps to do for solid migration

Transfer XP 32bit to Win7 - migrate files, music, em-mail, settings etc