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General discussion

Windows 7 on another PC

Jun 6, 2010 3:47AM PDT

A friend of mine purchased a laptop with Vista installed. At the time, he was eligible for getting the free upgrade to Win 7 by just paying the shipping charges.

He now has the Win 7 disks but has not yet installed it. He is thinking of installing the win 7 OS (which again has never been used yet) onto his desktop which is running WinXP. Is this doable, or would he be breaking some MS law.

Discussion is locked

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No
Jun 6, 2010 5:11AM PDT

No, the discs received will ONLY work with that specific system model. Trying to install it on some other system would lead to a large number of technical problems, as well as being a violation of the EULA.

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hmmm
Jun 6, 2010 5:28AM PDT

Thats what he thinks too, but i feel differently. Essentially my understanding is he is technically getting a brand new OEM version of Win 7, which has not yet been "married" to any hardware.

Upon first intall on the desktop, he will encounter the EULA which would at that point attach that copy of Win 7 to that hardware. Mind u he will not be using 2 copies on different machines. Just one Win 7 on one machine.

As for the install, im sure it would install fine. It may install a bunch of software with it that is specific to the laptop which may not work, but those can be un-installed.

Again, this is my understanding, so I open to accept other scenarios.

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Nope
Jun 6, 2010 7:39AM PDT

Nope, you're not getting an OEM copy, you're getting a volume license copy. One that will ONLY activate under specific conditions. It'll install on any other system, but it won't activate because it's not licensed.

You're free to find out that I'm right, or you can just save some time and accept what I'm saying.

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Listen to Jimmy.
Jun 7, 2010 3:22AM PDT

He is correct. The Windows 7 disc your friend recieved is for use on the laptop running Vista ONLY. If he tries to installs on the desktop running XP, he will be unable to activate and will result in non-genuine Windows - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/genuine

If he wants Windows 7 on his computer that is running XP, he will need to purchase a full retail copy, or an upgrade copy (which will save him a little money).

Cassandra