Should I upgrade to AOL 7.0?

Should I upgrade to AOL 7.0?

-Krista

This question was answered on November 5, 2001. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

America Online launched its latest version, 7.0 in mid October and as with many questions about upgrading, the answer depends upon the user and what the upgrade is supposed to do for you

According to AOL, version 7.0 has added:

-Local, community-focused features, shopping and other resources

-Radio@AOL, a built-in radio service designed to make it easy for people to access their favorite music online

-AOL Box Office, offering one-stop access to tickets for events of every kind

-Enhancements to the most popular features of AOL including e-mail, instant messaging and the Buddy List, My Calendar, the AOL Media Player and the "You've Got Pictures" service

In other words, no major changes but lots of little tweaks that will only mean something to avid AOL users Experienced Internet users will still have no reason to consider switching to AOL's proprietary controlled system based on this new version.

But, if you have a new system with Windows XP or are planning to upgrade to XP, AOL version 7.0 may be required in order for it to work properly.

Only versions 6.0.2 (an update to the original 6.0) and 7.0 are compatible with Windows XP To check your version of AOL, open the program then click on the Help menu Select the 'About America Online' entry and look for Revision 4111.50 or higher If the revision number is lower than 4111.50, you will have to upgrade if you plan to use Windows XP.

If you are running an older version of Windows, you may want to wait until a few million of your fellow users have attempted the upgrade The previous two versions (5.0 and 6.0) had numerous issues when they were first launched that caused a variety of ailments.

America Online continues to be the largest single Internet Service Provider, which means it must keep the needs of over 30 million users in mind when creating updates The early reports on this new version seem to suggest that they have learned from their past releases and have taken steps to reduce the chances of problems during the upgrade.

The fact that they have not made major technological changes 'under the hood' should also lower the chances of having problems.

If you do decide to update to 7.0, here are a few tips that may be of help:

- If you connect to the Internet via dial-up, consider getting a free CD version of the program from a retail store so that you won't have to suffer through the 32Mb download

- Before starting the upgrade, be sure to close all other programs and reboot your system so that you have maximum resources available

- During the installation, you will be asked if you want to 'move' or 'copy' the information from the older version to the new installation If you have plenty of free hard disk space, I would suggest you select the 'copy' option so that you keep your older version in tact, just in case of a problem.

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