Reminder: Windows 7 RC Expiration...

I purchased an HP 2009m in October that came with a free upgrade. I have 2 questions- #1 is there an expiration date on the upgrade? #2 How difficult is it to upgrade? Will it just be installed over what I have now? (files are backed up on an external hard drive) I keep hearing talk on this forum regarding "clean istalls" and I really did not want to go through that- was hoping I could go to the website- hit "run" and have it just install with no worries. I love my new computer and don't want any new problems!

1.) HP required customers to request the upgrade DVD by a certain date. However, once you receive the upgrade DVD from HP, it does not expire and can be reinstalled in the future.

2.) The upgrade is easy to install, largely leaving everything you have intact. Only a few select programs may need updated/replaced, and the upgrade installer should tell you about any potential problems in advance. No clean install is required.

Hope this helps,
John

No, you will have to reinstall your previous OS- if it is Vista or XP and perform the upgrade (as a download or disk) or purchase the full version if you cannot reinstall your previous version of Windows. I am glad you like Windows 7, and we appreciate your participation in the RC.

Tara

In May 2009 I bought a Hewlett Packard Desktop PC, a Pavilion Media Center with Vista x64 installed. It has 2 hard drives installed, and I would like to either install Windows 7 on the other hard drive since I have the HP factory recovery partition and CDs for both Vista x86 and x64. Can I buy the Upgrade version of Windows 7 and install it on this Vista PC if I have the Factory version of Vista, or do you have to have the retail version of Vista in order to get an Upgrade version of Windows 7?

Here is the reason I am asking. Back in 2001 I had Windows ME on a new HP computer. I bought the Windows XP Pro Upgrade CD and installed it, and it let me keep my files and folders from ME, and I used XP for 8 years. Then my C:\Windows\System32\ Master Boot Record files and several other important files were lost in some sort of incident I can't fully diagnose, and I was unable to reinstall Windows XP, because it said I did not have a verifiable version of Windows. It asked for me to put a Windows CD into the CD-ROM drive, and I put the factory CD into the CD Rom drive of Windows ME, and it did not accept that as an acceptable Windows ME CD, maybe I needed to completely wipe the drive and install Windows ME before it would have worked again? I was trying to do the System Repair procedure it was offering for me to do, but it clearly didn't work, but 9 years of my life are on that old hard drive, I just have to find someone who can recover it, when I have enough money to pay them to do it. Ironically, I was in the process of uploading the files, photos, etc. to Carbonite online backup service and had just purchased a Firewire/USB/eSATA external hardrive triple interface when it happened, and I blame the beta Carbonite online storage service which came with the external drive for a year free, for the attack on my hard drive.

In summary, can I buy the less costly Windows 7 Home Premium to Upgrade my Vista Home Premium x64 Desktop PC with the factory version installed on it, or do I need to buy the more expensive "full" version of Windows 7 since I don't have a retail version of Vista?

Thank You for answering my long winded question.

You can purchase the upgrade edition of Windows 7 and use it to upgrade the OEM installation of Vista. However, note two things:

1.) You can install the upgrade along side the installation of Vista; it must be an upgrade, with you using Windows 7 instead of that copy of Vista.

2.) The activation process no longer lets you simply insert a DVD as proof of prior ownership. Rather, if you ever need to reinstall Windows 7, you must install Vista first and perform the upgrade again. Thus, you'll want to keep those original Vista recover discs safe for the duration.

Hope this helps,
John


P.S. If the data on the old hard drive was not erased and the drive did not suffer mechanical failure, you can simply connect it to your new computer as a secondary drive and copy your files off of it. Just remember to Take Ownership of any folders you are denied access to (C:\Users, C:\Documents & Settings, etc). On the other hand, if the data was erased, Recuva is a free application that may be able to recover a large portion of your files.