I have a small business, and we've been sticking with XP. I just had to order a new PC, and was thinking of setting it up to run Windows 7 right now. We're an engineering firm, so we need Autodesk products and such to work well with it. It will be a process, whenever we do it, to get that working right.I don't really need that functionality myself, so my theory is to have the time to get it up and running on mine, so we have the bugs worked out when I need to do it for a productive person. I have read that Autodesk products are interfacing well with Windows 7.I'm just curious if it seems manageable to people to use it for a primary computer, or stupid. I don't mind a few glitches. I figure I'd have that with Vista anyway.

I am sure that you do know that this is a beta product that will expire August 1st. I can say from experience that Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 SP1 will work great on Windows 7 w/out any issues. If you want to test it out on your new PC, then great. I fully agree that it is in your best interest to get to know the new interface and interaction if you have not used Vista as there are significant UI and architectural changes from Windows XP. If it was me and I wanted to do what you are asking, this is what I would do. Keep the XP machine your primary system for work. When it comes time to do very important work and work that it time sensitive, this old machine is your choice. When you get the new machine, immediately get a new, internal hard drive and an external USB, FireWire, or eSATA hard drive (the latter two depend on the capabilities of the new computerall computers will have USB2 interfaces, however). More on the external drives later. Disconnect the OEM hard drive so that you dont mess up anything in the case you need to come back to an OEM condition. Connect the new, internal drive as your only drive. Do not connect the external drive yet. DO A CLEAN LOAD of Windows 7 on the new, blank hard drive making sure you have the appropriate Vista drivers if necessary. One you have a good, running systemwhich I am sure you will, connect the external drive. Load up your software that you normally use. Use the external drive to save all of your information so that if you do end up having to return to an OEM condition or have to do a reload, your data is intact. Let's getback to the external drives. If you have an eSATA port, see if you can get a good eSATA drive. With an eSATA drive, you have the outstanding 1.5Gb/s or 3Gb/s bandwidth that is native to the SATA interface with the benefits of an external drive. If that is not available to you, see if you can opt of a FireWire 800 drive providing your computer has a FireWire 800 port. In either case, you will definitely have a USB2 port in which to connect a good, high-capacity USB drive. There are some drives that have all three interfaces. If you have a network with centralized storage in the form of a dedicated file server or a NAS (Network Attached Storage), then you can use your network to save your data. This is the best solution as both the XP machine and the Windows 7 machine can save and access the same data. This also provides a level of protection in the event you may need to do something with the Windows 7 machine in the futurewhich you will. Even if you have a perfect experience, you WILL have to do something to the Windows 7 system come August 1, 2009. Either you will load the RC version (if made available), or you will have to revert back to the OEM statuswhich all you will need to do is just replace hard drives. Remember, you data should be on storage that is not native to the system anyway. If you really like what you experienced in Windows 7, you can reconnect your testing hard drive and DO A CLEAN LOAD of the RTM version when released. That is what I would do.Good luck.

Exactly the information I needed. Thanks.