With more and more information regarding the various upgrade paths to Windows 7 becoming available, Ars Technica compiled a handy guide detailing the upgrade paths Microsoft offers to its customers. Are you wondering if you can buy a cheaper upgrade version of Windows 7 once it’s released? Read on.
If you’re still running Windows XP, Microsoft allows you to buy the upgrade version of Windows 7. However, and this is the catch, you will have to perform a clean install. Then again, I wouldn’t advise an upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 anyway – the company doesn’t have a very good track record in this regard (contrary to Apple, which does a much better job on this one).
Windows Vista users have it easier, since you can actually perform an upgrade to Windows 7, without removing your files. The upgrade paths are where it gets tricky though, as you have to do some version matching. Here they are:
- Windows Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Home Premium
- Windows Vista Business to Windows 7 Professional
- Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate
I find it a bit odd that you can’t, say, move from Home Premium to Professional (they can only do a clean install), but when it comes to this whole versioning thing Microsoft has going on, logic hasn’t exactly been in attendance very often. You also cannot do an upgrade from 32bit to 64bit; that will require a clean install. Languages must match as well.
An interesting suggestion has been to make Windows 7 a free upgrade for current Vista owners – highly unlikely, but it would result in some major karma points for Microsoft. Another idea thrown around is that Windows 7 should be the final Ultimate Extra – also unlikely, but again, karma points galore.
Users who buy a Vista machine after July 1st (date may change) will be eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade. And that’s about it.
It makes me long for sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. Linux has its own fair share of flaws, but they sure as Frankenfruity got this one right. I’m writing this story on my Ubuntu box, and I can’t help but chuckle at all those people trying to make sense of the above. Of which I will also be one once my two Windows Vista machines need upgrading.
Way too many editions, but we knew that was going to happen anyway. Still, the actual upgrade paths are clear enough, I suppose.
You also cannot do an upgrade from 32bit to 64bit; that will require a clean install
Slightly off topic.
With Vista Ultimate OEM. Am I allowed to use the same key with 64-bit OEM install media?
Am I allowed to go 64-bit legally?
I have never been able to find anything conclusive on this matter.
64-bit WIN7 beta works beautifully on my system and I think that is the upgrade path I wish to take.
I was able to use a key I got with a 32-bit Ultimate Edition student license with a 64-bit Home Premium OEM disk. It installed the Ultimate Edition.
Couldn’t tell you about the legalities of it, but I’m pretty sure Microsoft does not care.
Yes you have right to 64 bit legally
also it does not matter which Vista DVD media you use VL, OEM, Retail charity or education copies you can even use a dell disk to install on a compaq Vista has gotton rid of those headaches
The article reads like doing a clean install of Windows is a bad thing. Take it from me, an experienced Windows user for over 15 years….
Never install a new version of Windows over an old one. EVER!!!!!!! There are NO exceptions to this rule.
If you purchase (or otherwise obtain) a new version of Windows. ALWAYS format your hard drive and install the new version CLEAN.
And while we’re on the subject of upgrading tips, NEVER install ANYTHING from Symantec on your computer. Anything from McAfee is also highly discouraged.
Edited 2009-02-13 01:13 UTC
yeah. Upgrading is a horrible idea. Usually results in a massive unstable system, from my personal experience.
A lot of people didn’t know this, but you could clean installs using upgrade cds for windows xp (and probably 2k, never tried). All you had to do was boot the disc, it’d ask for a legit previous OS CD (my burned copy of windows 2k worked like a champ
) and then it would proceed with the install.
I can’t tell you how many systems I’ve had to fix that came in with a windows 98 sticker or something and were running XP. The machines usually had been upgraded and they had opted to not upgrade the FS from FAT32 to NTFS! D:
Edited 2009-02-13 01:39 UTC
Yeah, and you could install the XP Professional upgrade with a Windows 95 setup CD, even though I don’t think you were supposed to be able to
Yeah, and they probably never uninstalled their old version of Norton either.
Edited 2009-02-13 03:16 UTC
only do it if you want to make people like me richer
Couldnt agree with you more on both points
Personally, I think anyone currently holding a Vista license should receive a credit voucher from Microsoft for the Windows 7 upgrade of the same version (i.e., Home Premium, Ultimate, etc.) Anything less would be a crime in my book. Microsoft foisted a horrifically sluggish, buggy bloated OS onto millions of users world wide (their Guinea pigs) and now expect these poor wary folks to actually pay to upgrade to the “fixed” (we’ll assume) Windows 7? I think not.
me thinks those lemmings who got sucked up into Vista deserve to get sucked up into Windows 7, and pay again to Microsoft for that privilege.
Vista is a great OS the only ones who complained about it are the ones trying to install on old hardware,fanboi’s of other OS’s, Administrators who thought they knew it all about Windows XP and were to lazy to learn a new OS or trying to use really old software that did not follow Microsoft’s software development guidelines that they were stressing since Windows 2000,
(Its not Microsoft’s Fault if someone bought some software from ass clown developers who took shortcuts)
also there were driver issues which Microsoft is only responsible for their hardware if you remember going from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 after launch you should know that the Vista driver situation wasnt that bad the only reason you heard about if more was the rise of blogs which gave any person a equal voice including 12 y/o who are not even qualified to install a USB mouse
Most of those people who now switched to OSx (Not all the people switched because of that but you get what I mean apple intel does play a role)
I could see Microsoft making up for the loss of Ultimate extra other than that no
I missed one area so I had to edit the “Vista Capable” so joe blow who bought a xp laptop or someone who bought a vista basic not knowing about what it was That was Microsoft’s fault for allowing hardware venders to sell a pc with 512 mb of ram
Those people should get copies also (If they were not part of the lawsuits and already recieved a payment)
Edited 2009-02-13 21:06 UTC
why do people have problems with newly installed vista on a vista licensed pc ?
As on my edit Microsoft letting the PC Manufactures (Acer and HP were big ones in this) sell a laptop or desktop with Vista and only 512 MB of memory and then limit the Bios to 2GB to hit a price point at Walmart thats when standard users have problems
since Vista uses 512 just to start up and then add apps running on that and people are using a good 2gb of Virtual memory with harddrives thrashing away or sell a vista basic laptop that doesnt support aero which puts even more stress on a system by using a already low powered cpu to do graphics instead of offloading it to the gpu
Microsoft should not have caved in to Hardware Manufactures or Retailers and made Vista Home Basic as this would have forced hardware venders not to use yesterdays trash on new low cost pc’s
It that decision that caused this whole Vista stigma and Microsoft was very wrong to make it
I find Vista SP1 to be quite usable and pleasant. Maybe Vista RTM did suck (I wouldn’t know), but if it did, then Vista SP1 was indeed free to Vista RTM users, which is the policy you’re talking about.
I’d agree with making Windows 7 free if either of the following were true: 1. Vista SP1 were horrible; 2. Windows 7 were simply an SP type release. I don’t find either of these to be true, so I don’t agree that Windows 7 should be free (not for the reasons your saying, anyway).
I’m also a long time Mac user, and OSX 10.x+1 upgrades aren’t free to OSX 10.x users, with the exception of OSX 1.1, which made sense because OSX 10.0 was pretty bad and 10.1 was really an SP release.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleB…