Vista/Seven OEM confusion?

Golden · 30 Oct 2011

G'day,

This is the situation : my wife has a Gateway (Acer?) laptop that originally came with pre-installed OEM Vista. At the time of purchase you could register and get a free Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade disk in the post. I did that, and upgraded from this disk. Everything worked fine, no problems, everything is running well. Windows 7 is shown as OEM.

However, in the event that I need to reinstall from scratch (there is a Vista? recovery partition on the hard disk) how would I go about that?

Would I:

1. Recover back to Vista, and then
2. Upgrade again to Windows 7 using the upgrade media disk?

I image her laptop on occasion uisng Macrium, so perhaps the easiest would be to restore from the Macrium image, if I needed too?

What do you think? Is there an easier way to get a "clean reinstall" of 7 without having to spend time in Vista world first?

Regards,
Golden

seavixen32 · 30 Oct 2011

Hello Golden.

I would have thought a clean install with your Windows 7 Upgrade disc would be the easiest option.

You don't have to have Vista installed, just the fact you've got it qualifies you for the upgrade install.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

The Macrium image restore should be feasible too.

Golden · 30 Oct 2011

G'day Seavixen,

Yeah, thats what I thought....but reading Brink's tutorial again, he is quite adamant that this is for a Retail OS, and not OEM as in my case. Hence my confusion......

The activation on the current Windows 7 definately shows as OEM.

Regards,
Golden

seavixen32 · 30 Oct 2011

Golden said:

G'day Seavixen,

Yeah, thats what I thought....but reading Brink's tutorial again, he is quite adamant that this is for a Retail OS, and not OEM as in my case. Hence my confusion......

The activation on the current Windows 7 definately shows as OEM.

Regards,
Golden

In that case, perhaps a quick PM to Brink would clear that issue up?

If it is going to be a problem then the Macrium image restore would be your next best option I would have thought.

Golden · 30 Oct 2011

Good idea. Thanks mate.

seavixen32 · 30 Oct 2011

You're very welcome.

Let us know how you get on. :)

whs · 30 Oct 2011

I would think that you are safe with the images. Keep one of the early images (in case you have to go wayyy back) and then go with the current images. I always keep a bunch (about 10).

Brink · 30 Oct 2011

Hello Golden,

It depends on if it's a "retail" OEM copy like you buy at a store, or a "factory recovery" OEM copy. Most likely it's the retail OEM type though. If so, you should be able to use that tutorial to do a clean install from a upgrade copy with it. :)

To be safe, I would recommend not to delete the Vista factory recovery partition, and to create a set of Vista factory recovery disc in case you may need them.

gregrocker · 30 Oct 2011

The factory Upgrade kits should include a clean copy DVD of Win7 with an attached Product Key, as specified by MS for manufacturers to participate in the program.

You can clean reinstall with Upgrade version in most cases without even having to do the workaround given in the tutorial, since the booted installer detects the underlying OS to allow use of Upgrade version key even if you go on to use Custom install Drive Options to format C or repartition.

In this case I believe the key's provided are OEM so that it doesn't even need to see an OS to allow key up front.

Golden · 30 Oct 2011

Thanks guys.

I'll browse the contents and see if there is anything to suggest that its a "retail OEM" as opposed to a "factory OEM" - the DVD disk has Gateway logo's all over it, but it does, as Greg suggests, have a MS sticker and product key stuck on the back.

My Macrium image includes the Recovery partition, but I will make a set of recovery disks so I have all the bases covered.

I'll post back about the contents once I have a chance to examine the disk.

Regards,
Golden