In-place upgrade using full version?

I'm new to the forum, so I apologise if this has been asked before. Can W7 Home Premium full version be used to do an in-place upgrade?

I have a new PC with Vista Home Premium that gives me a free upgrade to W7 (but it will still cost 20 euros for p&p). Vista is pre-loaded and the recovery files are on a separate partition on one drive. Worse case scenario is the hard drive dies. I will need the full version of W7 to do a clean install on a new hard drive, but at the moment I would just like to upgrade.

All things considered, I'm thinking of buying the full version while it's half price but need to know if I can use that to just do an upgrade. Is that possible?

Thanks in advance.

D :)

Wow, that was quick! Thank you soooo much.

D :)

I have the recovery disk, thanks. Would this include the drivers?

Also, as I have a 640GB hard disk, would it be better to install a fresh copy of Windows 7 on a separate partition instead of upgrading Vista?

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Gill :)

I run 1 clean install of 32bit 7, 1 clean install of 64bit 7 and 1 upgrade of 64bit 7 from Vista 64 on (3) machines.

I can't tell the difference between any of them as far a normal usage goes.

Supposedly the only difference between the upgrade discs and the full is that the upgrade discs need to see the prior genuine installation first.

Beyond that you're supposed to be able to in-place upgrade (from Vista) or fresh install with either.

So what's the concensus? Upgrade Vista or install fresh W7 on a new partition and create dual boot?

Gill :)

Damsel said:

So what's the concensus? Upgrade Vista or install fresh W7 on a new partition and create dual boot?

Gill :)

Clean win 7. wins every time. you can keep vista till you are sure but then its easy to delete

Ken