You can purchase a pack that installs Windows 7 over your XP OS. It cost about 80$ less then what you would spend on Windows 7 if you did not already have a legit copy of XP. 7 also saves all of your old XP data, all applications that were installed, and it can run them. You can’t put it on single core rigs though, and I wouldn’t put it on an older system whose memory is too slow.
The HW driver finder is also very convienient. It actually works, unlike XP. Whatever device you plug in, 7 just auto downloads and then installs the correct driver, no fuss, no discs.
Yes, that's true and it's quite convenient. The only thing I'd add is a cautionary tale about printers (and other peripherals). When we migrated to 7 after upgrading our hardware, we had a couple of printers that really weren't that old become obsolete because the manufacturer - XEROX (bastards) - elected to not release updated driver. There was a work around, that really didn't work all that well. So, we had to replace the printers.
If upgrading to 7, it's best to do your homework to make sure your manufactures support 7, especially with the peripherals that are more than a couple years old.