Newsletter Archives

• Clean-install Windows 7 from the upgrade disc

  Posted on November 12, 2009 at 20:22 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I’ve just published one of the most important (and best-received) articles I’ve ever written for Windows Secrets Newsletter.

  If you’re thinking about installing Windows 7, or if you’re in the middle of getting it working, check out this week’s Top Story. It tells you everything you need to know to get an upgrade to work.

  Windows News Windows 7 upgrade, Windows Secrets Newsletter

• Windows 7 upgrade is an upgrade, but…

  Posted on November 2, 2009 at 19:26 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  ‘Softie Eric Ligman posted a provocative piece on the MSDN blogs entitled “Regardless of what any hack says, a Windows 7 Upgrade is an Upgrade. What you need to know.”

  While I readily admit to being a hack, in the original, pejorative sense of the term, Eric seems to be taking to task those folks who published the well-known trick that allows you to install a “full” version of Windows 7 from the “upgrade” DVD. With one small twist, the newly published tricks greatly resemble the old Vista bypass Brian Livingston wrote about in 2007.

  Yes, you read that correctly. The same workaround that allows you to install a “full” version of Windows Vista from the upgrade CD also works with the Windows 7 DVDs.

  He hit a nerve. Paul Thurrott posted a riposte.

  There’s a lot of confusion about the upgrade paths available to Windows owners, whether they’re officially endorsed or merely allowed by using hooks that Microsoft has supported for years. We can only hope that some enlightenment will be forthcoming. I, for one, won’t hold my breath.

  Watch my Windows Secrets column later this week for a coupla observations.

  Windows News Win7 full install from upgrade DVD, Windows 7 upgrade

• Using Windows 7 Upgrade DVD to perform a clean install

  Posted on October 24, 2009 at 07:18 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  One of the big unanswered questions about Windows 7 is currently ricocheting around the Web: can you install Windows 7 on a clean hard drive using the upgrade DVD? A related question: can you install Windows 7 Upgrade on a PC that is running a, uh, less-than-genuine copy of Windows XP or Vista?

  I don’t have a “real” Windows 7 Upgrade DVD in my hands, so I can’t confirm anything that I’ve been reading.

  Paul Thurrott says you can do it, but the method he gives is horribly convoluted. (It isn’t clear to me why a slmgr -rearm command would open up anything that can’t be done in a much more convenient way.)

  If any of you have the upgrade DVD in hand, could you try a few experiments for me?

  – Try to boot from the upgrade DVD.

  – If that works, try installing the upgrade on a PC that only contains a completely clean hard drive: Nothing on the hard drive, no other hard drives in the computer.

  – Try installing the upgrade on a PC that’s running a pirate copy of XP or Vista. (Or, failing that, a copy of XP or Vista that hasn’t been activated.)

  Let me know what you find, and I’ll gladly credit you in my next Windows Secrets Newsletter Top Story.

  UPDATE: Ed Bott has some definitive answers. You can bet that they’re quite accurate. Paul Thurrott has published a rather bizarre workaround, and confirmation that the Family Pack upgrade DVD is identical to a “regular” upgrade DVD – the only difference is the type of key.

   

  Windows News Win7 Upgrade media, Windows 7 Clean Upgrade, Windows 7 upgrade

• Lingering questions about Windows 7 upgrades

  Posted on October 17, 2009 at 07:20 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  We still don’t know a lot about the Windows 7 upgrade DVD, which should be on store shelves on the 22nd.

  Reader DG wrote to me:

  I hope I didn’t miss this valuable information, but with the imminent release of Windows 7 are we able to perform a clean install using an upgrade version of the OS?

  If you’re asking whether you can use the upgrade DVD to install a clean version of Windows 7 over the top of an existing registered “genuine” copy of Windows XP or Vista, the answer is yes, providing you upgrade along one of the prescribed paths.  Ed Bott posted an excellent remake of Microsoft’s confusing chart that tells you what you can and can’t upgrade.

  But if you’re asking whether you can perform a clean install in other situations, it’s a damn good question. That’s one of the questions that, at this point, we don’t know the answer to.

  Hard to believe, but with less than a week to go until the Windows 7 official release, nobody’s seen the upgrade media. Or at least, the ones who have seen it haven’t talked about it. There are at least a dozen open questions that should be answered by about 12:01 a.m. on October 22. Yours is one of the most important.

  MS has an official announcement about upgrades on Brandon LeBlanc’s blog, but I, for one, don’t believe this statement:

  The Windows 7 [upgrade] setup process will look for a previous version of Windows on the computer during installation and if a previous version is not found, activation will not complete successfully using the Product Key for the upgrade license.

  I think we will find that the truth is far more subtle…

   

  Windows News Windows 7 upgrade

• Why you might want Windows 7 – and how to get it

  Posted on August 7, 2009 at 18:57 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  If you’re still undecided about Windows 7 – whether you really need it, and how to get it if you decide to take the plunge – I would like you to read three articles. Actually, parts of three articles.

  Mark Minasi, a well-known Windows lecturer and mahaguru, puts together a series of newsletters. He’s devoted a big chunk of his two latest newsletters to explaining why a Windows XP stalwart and/or Vista victim might – or might not – want to shift to Windows 7. Mark knows whereof he speaks. Check out “Windows 7: To Adopt or Not to Adopt?” in newsletters 78 and 79.

  Then, if you’re still interested, Ed Bott has just posted the first thorough and accurate Windows XP/Windows Vista-to-Windows 7 upgrade chart on his blog. You have to wade through some well-deserved criticism of Microsoft’s marketing minions at the beginning, but Ed’s chart at the end of the article gives you the straight scoop on the good, the bad and the ugly of upgrades.

   

  Windows News Windows 7 upgrade