Win7 Upgrade Hack

OK, so it’s not so much a hack as a simple workaround. Paul Thurrot explains, here, how to do a clean install of Win7 on an empty hard drive using Win7 upgrade media. Now, for some that sounds like a license to “steal” a full install (~$220 for Win7 Premium) for an upgrade (~$120) price. Not cool, folks. As Microsoft’s Eric Ligman points out,

“For those of you without an existing Windows license to upgrade from, you should be aware that an upgrade license by itself is not a license to install and run Windows on your computer…

“In order to upgrade, you need to have a qualifying license to upgrade from. Regardless of what any hack says, a Windows 7 upgrade is an upgrade.”

Note the “For those of you without an existing Windows license to upgrade from… ” Now, many of us do have existing qualifying Windows licenses to upgrade from (Win2K through Vista, for the most part). They might be on “retired” (and unused) hardware–an old PC or hard drive–but if it’s indeed unused and NOT GOING TO BE USED AGAIN, then that installation ought to morally, and probably legally, qualify for an “upgrade” installation, even if it is on new hardware.

Now, of course there are the restrictions placed on OEM installations that do not allow reinstalling the OEM Windows OS on new hardware. But still… I do have non-OEM media/licenses that’s for qualifying Windows versions not installed on ANY computer. So, I may well take Thurrot’s workarounds and do at least one Win7 clean install from upgrade media. After all, that’s $100 difference in price, and I would be “upgrading” an existing (unused) license… Of course, that would leave me one fewer licenses to use for Windows VMs, but that’s not such a biggie.

Oh! Bright point: the “gold” release of Ubuntu 9.10 is… now. 🙂

Buh-bye!

Update after the jump:

A thought: Since I do have media and licenses for versions of Windows that qualify for upgrade that are not in use on any physical or virtual machines, I might as well just do a fresh install of one of them and then do a “custom” (clean) install of Win7 using upgrade media. The effect is the same overall, and no one at Me$$y$oft could bitch about that. Really just same diff, but what the heck, it’d just be another 30 minutes or so tacked onto the process, if I go with a Win2K installation, which is PDQ.

Now, assuming the only computer on my network I want to install Win7 on is this one (since the license on this version runs out in May 2010 and I really primarily want to retain Win7 on this computer for the Media Center facility). Windows Easy Transfer of my files and settings to an external hard drive. Wipe the drive. Install Win2K. Custom Install whatever Win7 I decide is right for the machine using upgrade media (I’m thinking perhaps this one, since I’d be “building” a “new” computer, what with doubling the memory, adding a better vidcard and a new hard drive–yeh, I’d go ahead and buy a new one. The current one will make a nice “media drive” *heh*). Bob’s your uncle, and I’d have done nothing Me$$y$oft could bitch about.

BTW, my Wonder Woman’s 3.5 year old Toshiba Satellite-A105 upgraded easily enough from XP to Win7. The only hassle was a result of my decision to BOTH do a backup to an external (USB-connected) drive AND use Windows Easy Transfer. So, I ended up taking a lot of time to do the slooooowwwww backup and then the moderately slow WET file save. Worked out fine in the end, though. Her desktop’s back the way she likes it, after the WET import of files and settings. I’ve reinstalled her essential apps, now, and I’m just waiting to see how many of her other apps she previously had installed that she asks for. *heh*

Because it’s a clean installation, it’s pretty snappy even with the Aero effects turned on, despite the fact that she has integrated graphics on the thing. Oh, one nice thing: her graphics chipset is apparently grabbing onto a small chunk of the fourth gigabyte of her memory that Windows 7 32-bit doesn’t want to use, because after all is booted and Windows is filly loaded, a little over 3GB is available to the system, still. Yeh, yeh, there’s a way to fool Windows into using that last gig of memory anyway, and it is doing that (with DEP/PAE), but I figure if her graphics chipset’s grabbing some of it (along with other lil hardware bits n pieces) before the rest of the system does, I’m happy with that. That’s probably why the Aero effects aren’t logging her down so much.

All in all, this was just about the most well-mannered Windows upgrade one could imagine. Why, even her nice lil fingerprint reader (and extra Toshiba included that we didn’t order and that was not in the specs on her invoice) was discovered by the installation process and the proper software installed for it–something Toshiba warned might not work right out of the gate. Nope. Works fine.

I’d have tried switching her over to Ubuntu or some other easy to use Linux distro, but she has some apps that aren’t so happy under WINE. They could work, but don’t, really.