BURNS331

I would love to buy that OEM copy but my version is Vista buisness and i thought it had to upgrade to an equvilant version?

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3D Mark 06 18073 marks
Super Pi 1m 11.688 s

TwoCables

Oh, I don't know. All I know is that if you're doing the in-place upgrade, then it's 32-bit to 32-bit, and 64-bit to 64-bit. But other than that, I don't know if they are requiring Vista Business owners to upgrade to 7 Professional.

But if you do a clean installation beginning with a reformat, then it doesn't matter.

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T3h_Ch33z_Muncha

I highly recommend against doing an upgrade install.

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Please don't call me Muncha, as cheese is not the only insinuatable munchable object; Ch33z will suffice. Oh, and i almost forgot to express my love for Heru
Planned upgrades (kind of in order): 22" Monitor, Goliathus Omega (mousepad), new chair, Windows 7, CM 690, new desk, Ideazon ZBoard MERC, Sennheiser HD201, bong, DX 11 card(s)+necessary PSU
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BURNS331

Can you elaborate?

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3D Mark 06 18073 marks
Super Pi 1m 11.688 s

TwoCables

I agree. Clean installs where you begin with a reformat (even with Upgrade media) have a MUCH higher chance of giving you a good, stable, problem-free installation the first time. But an in-place upgrade increases the risk of running into problems created by upgrading the OS. It's just not a clean way of doing it. It leaves the hard drive heavily fragmented too. After the in-place upgrade, you can run into operating system instability, bugs, or just generally annoying little things. It's always best to do the clean, reformat type of installation no matter if you have the Upgrade media or the Full media.

Now, it's not guaranteed that you will run into problems as a result of doing the in-place upgrade. However, to avoid any chances of that happening, it's best to just do the clean installation.

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BURNS331

I would rather do a clean install, but im not sure of how to do that with the upgrade only OS.

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3D Mark 06 18073 marks
Super Pi 1m 11.688 s

TwoCables

There are 3 different ways to do it, but which one works for you cannot be predicted at this time. But here's an easy-to-follow tutorial on how to do it: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/cle...rade_media.asp

Without even knowing about the other ways, I went ahead and did the double-install method, and it worked just fine. I then later learned about these other methods. hehe

In a nutshell, you can install Windows 7 from an Upgrade DVD in a very clean, sanitary way by doing it this way:

1. Boot from the Upgrade installation DVD.
2. Click Next on the screen where it asks which language to install in.
3. Click Install now.
4. Click I accept the license terms.
5. Click Next.
6. Choose Custom (advanced).
7. Click Drive options (advanced).
8. Be sure the correct drive is selected, and click Delete.
9. Click New.
10. Click Format.
11. Click Next.
12. You will see "Expanding Windows files (0%)..." for a few minutes, and then the percentage will begin to steadily increase.
13. Wait for it to finish.
14. When asked for the Product Key, do not enter it.
15. Before clicking next, uncheck the box that says "Automatically activate Windows when I'm online".

The next part is important:

1. When you are finished installing (when you finally get to the desktop), re-insert the Upgrade installation DVD (while running the freshly installed copy of Windows 7).
2. Click Install now.
3. Click I accept the license terms.
4. Click Next.
5. Choose Upgrade.

I can't remember what happens from here, but the whole idea is that you install it really clean like above, and then you Upgrade the fresh installation of Windows 7 with the same Windows 7 Upgrade media (in-place upgrade). During this installation, you can enter the Product Key when asked the first time, and you can also leave that checkbox checked that says "Automatically activate Windows when I'm online". Also, be aware that the in-place Upgrade takes longer than the clean install, and it will also need to reboot your computer several more times during the installation. It will also look like it's making a really big backup or something of this current installation, however when finished, this installation of Windows 7 ended up taking almost 4-5 GB less than the official Release Candidate did on my system. I was worried it would be nearly twice the size thanks to that.

Anyway, that's it. It's a really easy and painless process, and it just might work as easily as it did for me. But be sure to try the other 2 methods before doing the in-place upgrade. It could save you the time of going through a second, longer installation.

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