I’m mightily confused by the whole Windows 7 release.
I want a copy as this machine is currently running the RC and I want to make it a legal copy.
I can get Home Premium or Pro for £30 from MS thanks to being a student. However this is the upgrade disc.
Does this mean I cant install it on a new build (which is essentially what this is)?
I’ve read somewhere that the upgrade disc will install it anyhow as after all it has to wipe XP to install.
Can anyone shed some light?
Also, is it worth getting Pro over HP?
I think it’s something to do with the networking and management abilities like those in VISTA that don’t work in HP cause they’re considered unnecessary in the home environment.
In short, Pro gets you the ability to connect to domains, the XP virtual machine and more backup options. There’s a hardware support difference too, but you’re unlikely to run into those unless you’re running a multi-socket box.
the machine I’ve put 7 on at work is quite a low spec, and it’s usable. XP2800, 1Gb ram with a 80Gb drive and a radeon9600 or therabouts.
I’m using mine to test out the new WPF stuff in VS2010 beta2. The link mackerel posted is going to be the one you want. I found in previous “upgrade” versions of windows that I could do a ‘clean’ install on a machine with no OS. I think it’s purely down to the license terms. Can’t say for sure with 7 though.
I don’t know about Win 7, but with previous upgrade versions being installed as a clean install, it would look for a previous version of Windows. Upon not seeing one, it would then ask you to insert the install disc of a previous version. Just pop that CD in, then stick the upgrade version back in and you were good to go.
If I understand correctly, there’s no direct upgrade from XP -that is, it’s effectively a clean install. It looks like you can use the win 7 upgrade version, rather than the full upgrade version to install it, but you have to reinstall your progs and data from scratch.
For 2000, you need to use a full upgrade disk. From Vista, you can, it seems, use a Win 7 update disk but keep your progs and data, but it’ll disable progs it doesn’t like.
I’m wondering though if I upgrade my XP to Vista, don’t activate it, and then hit it with W7, would that work - (me being lazy) ?
Ran that Win 7 upgrade advisor on my machine, and it told me a-ok, but my 8800 GTS was no good. Checked the specs for graphic cards on M$ - it’s talking rubbish.
I don’t have one. All my previous Windows reinstalls were via OEM recovery discs onto the machine they came with.
The upgrade disc does seem to be what I need, I read about a guy over at Micromart forums formatted a drive with linux and then installed the Upgrade as a clean install so it looks like it’ll work.
Now to decide whether to buy the disc (for £9 extra) or take a risk on this blog post here working as an install disc.
Regardless of whether you buy upgrade or full versions the media are the same (full retail) - M$ haven’t yet produced a dedicated upgrade release. That is due next year sometime.
From experience:
You can upgrade vista to 7 in place but some apps may be damaged by the process and require a repair install.
You cannot upgrade 32-bit to 64-bit as the installer is 64-bit and cannot run in the 32-bit environment.
Clean install over an existing install seems to be a no go - the 7 installer refused point blank to either format or delete the existing install of 7 RC (I had to format from a live CD). It wanted to install and leave the existing file structure behind but renamed.
XP to 7 is a backup, wipe and clean install job.
Can’t comment on Beta/RC to full as the 1 install I had was 32-bit and I wanted to migrate to 64-bit.
Put Win7 on my Shuttle last night, tried it on the Vaio but wasn’t happy with loss of functionalitly of some of the Vaio special buttons and the fingerprint reader. Happy with how it feels on the shuttle though and all the bits a bobs seem to work apart from the HP photo printer which wasn’t a suprise as I know HP are dragging thier heals on drivers.
[QUOTE=drezha;446093]I’m mightily confused by the whole Windows 7 release.
I want a copy as this machine is currently running the RC and I want to make it a legal copy.
I can get Home Premium or Pro for £30 from MS thanks to being a student. However this is the upgrade disc.
Does this mean I cant install it on a new build (which is essentially what this is)?
I’ve read somewhere that the upgrade disc will install it anyhow as after all it has to wipe XP to install.
Can anyone shed some light?
Also, is it worth getting Pro over HP?[/QUOTE]
You need an o/s installed otherwise the student upgrade disk will reject your key. You can, in this instance, ‘upgrade’ a 32 bit o/s to 64 bit.
Get the Pro version as you lose nothing but gain a little more flexibility. Just my humble opinion.
