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Blogs RC1 time running out? Get yourself 90 more days Windows 7 for free

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Sifter3000, 25 Feb 2010.

  1. Sifter3000

    Sifter3000 I used to be somebody

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  2. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    wow your confident you can put this on your home page?
     
  3. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    Last sentence: kernal = kernel.
     
  4. Bauul

    Bauul Sir Bongaminge

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    I can't believe anyone who went to the effort of installing the RC1 wouldn't have bought the full software by now, there's just no reason not to.
     
  5. Cyberpower-UK

    Cyberpower-UK Professional Overclocker

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    You might get more than 90 days.
     
  6. mi1ez

    mi1ez Modder

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    it's not upgrade to final version, so i can't see it being a problem.
     
  7. Risky

    Risky Modder

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    I have a laptop on some RC or similar of Ultimate since last May and was wondering if it was ever going to ask for some money. I'll see if it's squalking when I get home at the weekend. I just hope it will allow itself to be upgraded as I have one more licence on the Familypack.
     
  8. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Yup. We're not telling you have to crack the OS - the would be illegal - and using the software before inputting a license key is OK in the grace period that Microsoft allows. It buys you 90 days if you forgot RC1 was running out and have to save your pennies for the full OS.

    The benefit of doing it this way is that you don't need to format or anything at the end of, or within the 90 day period - you just buy the license key and input it, giving you fully registered software. :thumb:
     
  9. Blademrk

    Blademrk Why so serious?

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    I bought the full version when it was on offer pre-release but only just installed it over the RC last Sunday.

    main reason for not upgrading straight away was I didn't want to lose all my save games (especially on steam which I ended up doing anyway even though I thought I'd backed them up :( ).
     
  10. kenco_uk

    kenco_uk I unsuccessfully then tried again

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    Do you have to buy an Ultimate key? How would a Home Premium key work, doing this? I'd find it handy if I could use a Home Premium key and obviously end up with Home Premium, rather than having to wipe Ultimate RC off and start afresh.
     
  11. coolius

    coolius What's a Dremel?

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    Do you still need the Win 7 disc in the drive after you hit upgrade or does it run from the hard drive copy?
    (My laptop doesn't have a disc drive and if I could just do this by copying the files onto a usb stick using my desktop that would be great)
     
  12. chrisds

    chrisds What's a Dremel?

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    Great, this will buy me some time until i get round to the reinstall.....
     
  13. cybergenics

    cybergenics What's a Dremel?

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    Tech sites (and in particular Bit Tech and CPC) continually recommend Home Premium but don't mention that Professional is worth paying the extra for in my mind just for two very worthwhile features, XP Mode (essentially you get a 'free' copy of XP) and the backup incorporating Disk Imaging. Ultimate in my mind isn't worth it though.

    Another issue, perhaps not so inportant to most, friend of mine boasted about how he had orderered 6 stocks of Corsair 4gb DDR3 off the net and would have 24Gb of ram. Wasn't so boastful when he realised that Win 7 HP told him to FO as it has a maximum limikt of 16gb.

    Many people run 12gb of ram on X58, won't be long before 24gb is popular either. When Vista Beta was out, 4gb of ram was unheard of outside workstations and servers, msot boards wouldn't accept it, but soon it was the norm.
     
  14. Jenny_Y8S

    Jenny_Y8S Guest

    1) But you can install your old retail version of XP / Vista in virtual box for free so "XP mode" which is basically virtual PC isn't going to be a deal breaker for many people.

    2) Home Premium does come with drive image based backups (Was not the case with Vista)

    With Vista I had pro on my laptop and ultimate on my desktop and umpc. Now I have Win7 home premium on my desktop and Snow Leopard on my laptop. Now apple has the right idea in pricing it's versions of it's OS!
     
  15. cybergenics

    cybergenics What's a Dremel?

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    There is no disk imaging option in Home Premium, I have HP and Pro installations and on HP there is none. Full image backup is only available in Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate/Enterprise.

    All other editions have the file backup & restore option only. Home Premium cannot do the image based backup.

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

    Apple may have the right idea in pricing its OS, but the hardware prices are ridiculous. The case of the Macbook Pro is durable and attractive, crusty old Core 2 processors aren't.
     
  16. Combatus

    Combatus Bit-tech Modding + hardware reviews Lover of bit-tech Super Moderator

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    Not sure how but my retail version of Premium (installed from a premium disk last week) has backup WITH disk imaging - I created an image of a fresh install last weekend and checked that it worked. It even allowed me to create images of several drives.
     
  17. cybergenics

    cybergenics What's a Dremel?

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    The one I have is 32bit, seems the 64 bit does....
     
  18. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Damn, you got me there - yes you do. RC1 was ultimate and you can't downgrade to a Home Premium key. Good call.

    XP Mode is pretty pointless. It was thrown in to alleviate all those who were scared about missing their XPness. There's no DirectX support so old games still dont run and "run in compatibility mode" generally works well enough, plus, most people should upgrade their software along with OS. You can run Office 2010 beta for free for example. If you still need proper XP - do it properly with a second partition or second disk.

    I'd rather pay for Acronis if I was serious about imaging personally and my WHS does backup :D Obviously if you need the extra stuff then get it, that's what it's there for, but for the vast majority of people Home Premium is "expenditure enough" on something they dont directly get enjoyment from.

    If you extract the files it runs from a hard drive or usb stick. :thumb:
     
  19. iwod

    iwod What's a Dremel?

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    I dont like upgrade, but could i install Windows 7 using my RC1 Key?
    Or, if i just install Windows 7 not using any key , i will still get 90 days anyway...
    Right?
     
  20. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Yes on the latter point. But RC1 keys are RC1 only
     
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