Hi, I am sure this question has been asked a million times before but i searched and am slightly confused by the answers. So i am building a new SB system which will be running W7 and will be donating the rig in the sig to my nephew. i previously purchased a copy of W7 upgrade media to install on to the rig in my sig which previously ran Vista. Now obviously i cant use the same copy on my new rig so i will be buying a new copy of 7 but prefer to use the cheaper option of upgrade media. So : 1) Can i use upgrade media on a completely new build using the double install method? or 2) can i use the previous HDD in my new rig (convincing it that i had a previous version of windows) and then clean install a new copy of windows onto the new drive leaving me with two drives with windows that can both be used? or 3) do i have to buy a full/OEM version?
According to the license you can only use upgrade media over a previous installation of Windows be it Vista or XP. However I've found it is always best to clean install then do a registry hack (not supported by Microsoft). Double install method works fine however and is supported by Microsoft! Always best to clean install on a formatted HDD otherwise you'll end up with a mess!
Yes it works but a registry hack also works and is much faster to do! To date I have used an upgrade Windows 7 license for three different machines that previously had Vista installations. Since the HDD in all three systems were getting fairly old I ditched the Vista installation outright and with new HDD/SSD in place I did a clean install using Windows 7 upgrade media. All are authenticated and work fine, my most recent is a Dell D630 which had a slow 120GB Samsung HDD with Vista Basic 32-bit. Now it has a Corsair F40 SSD with Windows 7 64-bit. This site offers a good explanation... http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media
thanks, i have read that site before but i was still confused by a few aspects. just wanted someone to say 'yes it will work' before i fork out.
I used the 'Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack' myself. Very good value, worked out at £35 per machine upgraded to Windows 7! Most impressed by the Windows 7 installation on my Dell D630. I was concerned about driver updates but Windows 7 found all the relevant drivers and updated them without a problem! Including WLAN, Bluetooth and Intel Graphics, the latter under Windows 7 is around a 70MB installation but for whatever reason it was over 2GB on the Vista operating system that the D630 originally came with! Also Windows 7 managed to find a smart card installed that I didn't even know existed!
I previously bought the uprgade version of professional from this site http://www.software4students.co.uk/ now that is good value. last question. i have a win 7 professional upgrade disk that i used previously on the rig in my sig and i have the ssd that i will be clean installing the OS on for my new rig. Can i install W7 on it now using said upgrade disk while i wait for the new disk to arrive? i.e use the new key later
Sorry to thread jack but would I be able to buy the family pack and use two copies for myself and install the 3rd copy on my mothers machine? She doesn't live with us and I'd imagine all 3 pc's have to actually be in my home. I already have 3 legit copies but would like to upgrade my lad from XP and my laptop from Vista.
The license is intended for a single household. Saying that it installed on my laptop and they are by nature 'mobile'! I can't imagine the Windows 7 activation would log a location to associate with your first use of the family pack license. It would simply be too much of a logistical nightmare to enforce and so I dare say it isn't. Probably would work on your mothers PC but it is against the license terms!
