Chronicles of a Windows XP Upgrader #2: Wrong On All Levels

I just discovered that a semi-direct upgrade to Windows 7 was possible, and it would be like if you were to reinstall the Mac OS: your old files would be put into an old folder called "Old System" or something like that. But unlike Mac upgrades, Windows 7 will not retain all the Applications (or at least put them into the Applications folder automatically) and as such I'll still need to find all that software, which is such a pain.

Oh, and I just ran Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. It says I can't experience Aero. Seriously? The video card I upgraded from, an ATi, was able to do Aero on Vista (albeit slowly), so what am I missing? The minimum requirements include a 128MB video card that supports DirectX 9.0c. My video card does all that, so what's the problem?

Oh, and don't tell me about the hard drive I'm trying to back up all my data to using Laplink PC Mover. It doesn't read at all in my Windows PC, and it takes soooo long to reformat on my Mac. What the hell, seriously. I need a new one.