Windows 7 Upgrade vs New?

[Chad Sexington]

This might be really stupid: I have Vista Ultimate. If I buy Windows 7 Ultimate as an Upgrade, and say, have to reformat, do I have to install Vista and then 7 again? Or can I just install 7?

 

[PatrThom]

Some upgrades will just verify against your original disc. Others require a previous version be installed. I don't know which one the Win7U disc would require.

--Patrick

 

[figmentPez]

Some upgrades will just verify against your original disc. Others require a previous version be installed. I don't know which one the Win7U disc would require.

--Patrick

The Windows 7 upgrade, like Vista, is supposed to require a valid Windows install to upgrade from. There are ways around this, however, so a clean install can be done if you jump through a few hoops (editing the registry, or "upgrading" from Windows 7 to Windows 7)

 

[PatrThom]

Still holding off on the Win7 upgrade, myself. Gotta wait until cash meets carry. When I do, it'll be Win7Pro retail, even if it IS an extra $100. I don't want to be permanently attached to one motherboard.

--Patrick

 

[Matt²]

I have a win7 home upgrade disc.. it does NOT require me to have an OS (or it didn't last time) installed prior to installation.. one thing I DID notice that was bizarre was that it rated my processing speed several points LOWER than the regular install.. I couldn't figure that one out. (This was when I was testing different install versions, home, pro, 32 and 64 bit on the same machine, different hard drives)

 

[Seraphyn]

When I upgraded my laptop from WinXP Pro to W7 Pro it did not once ask me for anything. Though since I lauched it from within WinXP I suppose it could've checked quickly before it formatted everything.