Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Win 7 Pro upgrade from XP Pro, Sales Misinformation & MACS.

Nov 6, 2009 5:24AM PST

Hi y'all. I cannot run WIN 7 on my Compaq laptop. Too old and under powered. But I have Win XP Pro running on my Quad Core Mac. Apple says it won't have Boot Camp ready for Win 7 till December, but I started checking around today. (BTW, I never seem to have problems with WIN on the Mac like I do on my Compaq.)

WARNING on upgrade information: I asked Live "Help" at Staples today if XP Pro would qualify as a license for a WIN 7 Pro upgrade. Tech "Help" said that XP could no be upgraded and M$ recommended buying a FULL version. I don't know if that is purposeful misdirection to sell more full versions, but obviously the live desk did not know diddley. I had to tell him the difference between an upgrade process with a clean install and an upgrade license. He told me to ask M$ because he couldn't offer tech support.
BUT M$ doesn't make it helpful either when they put on the box "Upgrade Designed for Vista" implying that XP owners are SOL, and making no mention of XP eligibility on the box. Is this Balmer's idea?

My question though is, since my Mac is 64 bit, will the Win 7 64 bit be able to install on the Mac when Apple is ready for it? And can you use the transfer helper to save your XP files onto a Mac HD?

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
It depends
Nov 6, 2009 7:35AM PST

It depends largely on what drivers Apple will bundle with Bootcamp. Since they've made a big push into 64-bit land with Snow Leopard, maybe they'll try and encourage people to use Windows x64, and maybe they won't. It's Apple, so sometimes they just do crazy things for no apparent reason. I'd hold off on any purchases until you know what they're going to do.

- Collapse -
I believe the employee was confused as any
Nov 7, 2009 1:05AM PST

MS OS qualifies for the upgrade price but you need to do a full install to move to Windows 7 on any OS previous to Vista.