Your software is the problem. Older software was written before Win 7 existed, so the drivers and other stuff needed to run phones, printers etc in Win7 aren't there. For some things, you can download the update from the mfr site...other things may require purchasing a newer version ( Photoshop Elements 5 was too old. I had to buy v.8) ...and some equipment may just be so old that the mfr no longer offers new software for it. In a few cases, I didn't need to load any software...the drivers are built into Win 7.

I think you'll like Win7. It's not perfect, but seems to be stable (I've had it for 7 months now) and it does have some really cool features that XP didn't have.