Some bad news, About Win7 Upgrade

[ViN86]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlast

anyone answer the question?

Vista Ultimate can only be upgraded to W7 Ultimate? Why can't I do pro?

So I can do W7 Beta to W7 Professional....cool....what happens if I have to reinstall in the future? W7 Beta keys won't work and so on....so what's the plan? Microsoft has to understand that, not everyone will know how to image and do this or that. Doesn't seem very marketable from this standpoint, not sure why such a business move would be made.

I already posted this.

You can upgrade from any Vista version to Windows 7 as long as the Vista is activated. However, to do an "in-place" upgrade (keep all programs and documents in place), you need to follow the specified upgrade path (ie Business to Pro, Ultimate to Ultimate...).

[glObalist]

I have a RC of Win7 and just pre-ordered a "Win7 Pro E" from Amazon.

If I install and activate this RC, will I be able to "upgrade" to my purchased RTM on the 22nd of October once the DVD ships to me?

Also, do you get a choice of 32bit vs 64bit upon install?

[Mike89]

I'm just not believing this. I'm just not going to believe that there will not be a way to clean install Windows 7 upgrade (upgrading from XP in my case) again if the original upgrade went capoot (without having to install XP again first and then the upgrade again). I'm going to remain optimistic that Microsoft isn't going to pull that. That's just not right. Microsoft has got to figure that the situation of having to re-install Windows 7 at some point is going to happen either from the OS going south, a hardware failure or switching from 32 bit to 64 bit for example. I already pre-orded this upgrade (Win7 Professional). I purposely skipped Vista and now decided to go 64 bit Windows 7. If I'm locked into this one install deal (without going through a bunch of BS), I'm going to be one pissed off MF! I mean I already own a legal copy of XP. I shouldn't have to install it again if I had to re-install the Win7 upgrade again. Microsoft has got to have figured out a better way of dealing with that situation. Sombitch, now I have to think about this crap until more definitive news comes out. This sucks!

[CaptNKILL]

I think I'm just going to cancel my preorder for this.

I most likely won't be able to use it and even if I can somehow upgrade from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Premium, I don't want to screw up this license, since its been a great OS and I've never had to call MS to reactivate for a reinstall, even on entire system upgrades.

If I want Win7, I'll just buy a full version after its been out for a bit.

[nekrosoft13]

keep the pre-order, it will cost you 50, but after release it will cost 120. just keep it sealed and sell it to somone for lets say 80-90

For the people not wanting to go through the hassle of a reinstall later on, just install it once, make a backup disc image with the tools that come with Win 7 then if you ever have a system crash or something, just restore the image back up you made of the hard drive. You don't need to have Win 7 installed or boot up into it to restore the backup image. Of course this might not work if you changed hardware since you made the backup image.

[Mike89]

Here is info posted how to install from the upgrade Windows 7 disk which could also be done with the Vista upgrade DVD.

You can install Windows 7 on any PC without having to activate the OS for 30 days. If you're willing to jump through the hoops, the full version of Windows 7 can be installed from the "upgrade" DVD.

To do so, install Windows 7 without activating it and then perform a custom installation from the unactivated version. The result is a fully functional, legitimate copy of Windows 7. Windows Secrets editorial director Brian Livingston's Top Story from Feb. 1, 2007, describes a similar loophole in Windows Vista.

Here is some additional information on some things that remain unclear.

One interesting conundrum on the minds of many future Win7 users is whether using the Windows 7 upgrade DVD to install Windows 7 invalidates your old copy of Vista or XP. While Microsoft's End-User License Agreement certainly implies that this is indeed the case, it remains to be seen whether Microsoft will actually "turn off" the old key.

That could become an important consideration on a dual-boot system with Windows 7 and Vista (or XP). It also raises the question of whether you can give up on Windows 7 and reinstall your old version of Vista or XP. Since we haven't seen the upgrade version yet, there's no way to tell for sure whether the old authorization key gets zapped. Stay tuned for details.

[ViN86]

Originally Posted by Mike89

Here is info posted how to install from the upgrade Windows 7 disk which could also be done with the Vista upgrade DVD.



Here is some additional information on some things that remain unclear.

Any idea when this information is dated?

[Mike89]

Any idea when this information is dated?

7/16/09

Here is the whole newsletter.

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/090716


You can also subscribe to this newsletter for free. It's a pretty good newsletter with up to date info on windows stuff.

nevermind

If you check the link in that story http://www.maximumpc.com/article/new...%99s_installed
and read some of the comments you will see a link to Harold Wong's blog who works for Microsoft
http://blogs.technet.com/haroldwong/...ease-code.aspx

If you scroll down to some of the comments he made to people you will see this...

"Ok, I'll do my best to address all the comments to date.

1. Joel: I am very happy with the Windows Easy Transfer Tool. This works great for the home or one off computer. I used this tool to move stuff from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Beta as well as from Windows 7 Beta to Windows 7 RC. I used my USB Hard Drive as the storage location.

2. Todd: If you purchased the Windows 7 Upgrade, you only need the original media (CD / DVD) of Windows XP or Windows Vista. The Upgrade media will ask you to insert the media from XP or Vista so it can perform a check of the physical media before proceeding. Of course, if you already have Windows Vista installed on the machine, it will just allow you to perform an in-place upgrade.

3. Jeff: I guess I should have been a bit more clear on my stance and situation. For my personal computers at home, I NEVER do in-place upgrades. I always transfer the data off and wipe and reload. When testing beta Operating Systems, I absolutely NEVER attempt an in-place upgrade to final code. This is true for home and business. In a business environment, there are a lot more things that need to be considered. If the user desktops are not well controlled and users can install whatever they want, then in-place upgrades are usually not a good option for me because there's too great of a chance that the user has "messed up" enough items that it is probably time to do a clean up anyways. If the environment is large enough, I would have created images to deploy to desktops. In this case, I would still not do upgrades as I would create new images and deploy using those.

4. Chris: I agree with you in that I would never install beta software on mission critical systems. I use beta to test functionality and capabilities.

Harold Wong"

Further down he said this

"From what I understand, the Upgrade check will require the OS Installation media - the Recovery Disk will not work.

I'm sure if you are enterprising enough to do searches on the Internet, you can find some interesting workarounds to get Windows Vista Upgrade installed without the original media. Who knows if this will work for Windows 7.

Harold Wong"

So he isn't ruling out the Windows Vista workaround.

[Ghosthunter]

so i have not checked in a while...it sounds like I can do a full install without having to install vista first? as long as I have my original media?

am i correct?