Free Upgrade to 7 ???

And yes, they could have a way to distinguish legitimate Ultimate keys for such a thing.

elaborate. there was an app, not 2 days after vistas release day, that fools M$ into thinking that a computer, was a brand new out of the box machine with oem licensing. for every key blacklisted by M$, 10 more arose. they dont keep track of how many were purchased and where or when.it's impossible. it is a 5-1 chance that someone has the same key as someone on this site has the same key as 8 other people.
#'s aside, im just saying....


delete this post if you will, im just stating a fact. it is not my intent to promote illegal activities.

Hi there
What companies *SHOULD* do and what they *ACTUALLY* do is a moot point.

There will definitely be an "Upgrade" version of W7 - especially for those that bought a Retail version --just as there were cheaper editions of VISTA for upgrading to XP and the same for XP upgrades from Windows 2000 / Windows 98 etc.

Normally you just need to insert the previous version when prompted (that's for doing a Clean / fresh re-install).

Something like that will probably happen for W7 -- somewhere I suspect it will want evidence of a previous OS before validating your install.

The "Upgrade" versions are usually significantly cheaper and you can always get a really cheap solution by getting a (Legal) OEM copy by just buying something stupid like a Mouse.

(And to the previous poster -- of course there will be ways round activation / upgrade versions etc etc -- torrents as well won't stop even with pending trials of "The Bay and Mininova -- the VAST VAST majority will obey the rules -especially if you NEED your computer for work etc. Would YOU trust online banking to an OS you'd downloaded from a Torrent (After Retail when license activation becomes an issue).

Cheers
jimbo