win7 home premium in spanish?

Hello. My daughter is in the peace corps in El Salvador and she is trying to help someone out.

This other person has a computer with Vista Home Premium installed, lang is ENGLISH (which this person is not fluent in). Does NOT have install DVD. Apparently computer bought in US and sent to El Salvador or something. Doesn't seem to have a way to change the language as the machine currently is configured.

I understand that Home Premium only has a single language, Ultimate is required to have multiple languages installed (right?)

I thought it might be easier to install win7 Home Premium clean on this system. When installing, does it give you the choice of language at that time?

Is it possible to upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Win7 Home Premium and switch the language to spanish?

Or do we need to specifically buy a version of win7 sold as a "spanish version" or something?

I am definitely new to vista/win7, sorry if this is remedial, but didn't see much addressing multiple languages.

Thanks.

Unfortunately the Product Keys for Win7 are language-specific so it will only activate for the language purchased in each version.

You are correct that Ultimate has language packs via Windows Updates so you have your choice. MS wants us to use Anytime Upgrade to change Win7 versions, which simply unlocks the higher version features when you insert the key (and also works with retail keys).

There is also a workaround to change between Win7 versions so Ultimate could be tried for up to 120 days this way without have to reinstall: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...-120-days.html It could also be changed back using the workaround, which I will provide if you want. All versions can be unlocked in any version Win7 installer: Windows 7 Universal Installation Disc - Create

To clarify, so I can't just go by a "win7 home premium" and that -at install time- choose which language to use, right? I will need to buy a "home premium spanish edition" or something, is that right?

dharvey148 said:

To clarify, so I can't just go by a "win7 home premium" and that -at install time- choose which language to use, right? I will need to buy a "home premium spanish edition" or something, is that right?

That is correct. The licenses are language-specific for each version except Ultimate.

Does the person she is trying to help need it for more than 120 days?

A better idea might be to shrink the Home Premium partition on the laptop and install Ultimate on a separate partition for the trial period with extensions. This way she would have a menu when the computer starts to choose which OS she wants to boot into. We can help set this up as well as maintain and remove it later as it is something we do every day here.

Works the same as this: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and Vista

gregrocker: yes, this would be a PERMANENT replacement for the OS that is currently installed. This other person's primary language is spanish. I was wanting to stick with the home premium as Ultimate is quite a bit more expensive and would be a huge sum to the person she is helping. Also, I wanted to keep the solution to something that I KNOW will work and is pretty simple; my daughter is okay but not great with computers.

Where does one buy win7 home edition, spanish edition? I looked on MS Store, Amazon, etc. doesn't seem to provide the language as an option, so that is why I thought perhaps it was an install-time decision.

lemur: I had also thought that linux (in particular ubuntu) would be a great (and free) solution for this other person, depending on what they need. I find that ubuntu is nearly as easy as windows or os/x to install. One wrinkle is that this particular computer MAY only have a modem (not broadband) which from the small bit of research might not be a strength of ubuntu for this application. Also depends on what applications are used.

My daughter is supposed to find out some more specifics on (a) computer specs, (b) is there existing data that needs to be saved, and (c) what sort of internet connection is available, if any.

okay, sounds pretty good. A detail is that this is an upgrade from Vista, not win7, but I like the thought of upgrading to ultimate and then just switching the language rather than doing a complete clean install.

I think I'll have my daughter find out where this computer was bought, perhaps a new install DVD can be purchased or something.

Again, my concern is that this is going to be a huge sum for this person.

Thanks for the information, very helpful. I'll probably set myself up with a win7 VM one of these days soon.

If a retail WIn7 upgrade was purchased to upgrade from Vista (not a Factory Upgrade which came from computer maker) then I would preserve that $100+ retail copy to use on another computer.

Then I would buy a retail Win7 Spanish Home Premium Upgrade version from Vista if the upgrade path is allowed, or even a Vista Spanish version which might be more affordable. Vista has been trimmed down quite a lot now and is not a bad OS any longer.

I googled Win7 HP Spanish Upgrade and got lots of hits for around $114-120.

Seems like there should be some program for free software for those in the Peace Corps or those they are helping. I would have your daughter inquire at the local school as MS focuses their charitable efforts abroad via the schools.