Advice on upgrades

[custom sign center]

Wow!I didn't realize it had been so long since I visited Signs 101! I am in need of the best advice around so here I am!
My motherboard in my computer went out so I bought a new computer...has Windows 7 loaded but an option to downgrade to Windows XP Pro (which is what I previously ran).
Luckily I kept all my customer files on an external drive and my hard drive on the old computer is fine so I can recover my Rip profiles and other files but I have a couple of concerns since nothing ever goes perfectly smooth when setting everything up again.

I am (was) running the following:
Corel Draw X3
Wasatch 6.1
Mutoh ValuJet 1204
Graphtec 7000-130 plotter

I know I will need to update some firmware but my main concern is this:
If I upgrade my Rip software to a newer version will my color profiles change or are there any other issues anyone has experienced?
Also for you Corel users have you had any issues with upgrading from X3 to X4?
Thanks for any advice

 

[jiarby]

x3 will be fine until x5 comes out....
keep win7, is it 32 or 64bit?

what cpu/ram/mobo combo have you got?

 

[custom sign center]

It's a an HP 6005 Pro Microtower 64 bit with an AMD Phenom 2 quad processor..500GB HD, 4GBRAM. It comes with Windows 7 on it but I have both operating disks for XP Pro and Windows 7. Since I've been running everything with XP Pro I thought it would be safer to use that. According to Corel tech support, X3 won't be compatable with Windows 7 and according to Wasatch, I would have to upgrade to thier newest RIP version (I think it's 6.5 now)to run on windows 7....between the 2 software upgrades that's going to cost me an extra $760.00.
Seems unecessary since I can run XP Pro and then upgrade to 7 Pro later when I'm ready.
My main concern was my color profiles changing if I were to install a newer version of my Rip software. Since I have to re-install all my software anyway should I load Wasatch 6.3 since I have it? Has anyone had problems with color changes? I've already had enough down time and really don't want more headaches.
Thanks!