Upgrade disk installs to formatted HDD!

gregrocker · 22 Oct 2009

After believing all of the laborious explanations from "experts" on MS Technet why Upgrade disks must be started from the qualified activated OS, I have just installed a newly-arrived Win7 Premium upgrade disk to a formatted HDD with no other OS present which has activated itself. This is being reported by others in Doing a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

Others may have their ideas of what this means. The only thing I can come up with is that MS has shipped full retail product keys with Upgrades, or something is malfunctioning in the qualifying OS-activation-read process from boot (if there ever was one) so that the installer is reading old activation code of a underlying formatted XP/Vista/RC from boot on the disk.

Anyone else have a theory?

This would mean that Upgrade is effectively the same as Retail?

WOW!

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

You formatted the HDD.
But did you have an activated Windows OS before formatting?

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

Also did you format from within the Windows 7 setup or outside it?

gregrocker · 22 Oct 2009

I formatted from the booted Upgrade installer over an RTM which had no activation. The Custom install proceeded exactly like the RTM had. It took the license key upfront which came with the package and afterward activated immediately.

And before I installed the RTM on this machine I had zeroed the drive, so no activation residue should have survived anyway.

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

Where did you buy your windows copy from?

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

I did a similar thing gregrocker.
One reason why Windows might think its an upgrade, is because in the upgrade installer it detected a version of windows already installed, and then formatted it.

One thing is for sure, its not checking for a pre-activated version.

I'd like someone to install to a clean hard disk, formatted and zeroed.

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

btw mine is activated and fully running too

gregrocker · 22 Oct 2009

jackdawg said:

Where did you buy your windows copy from?

This one's from NewEgg. I have another coming from Amazon.

jackdawg · 22 Oct 2009

If you get a chance then do this with the Amazon
Format the HDD, zero it.
Boot from Windows 7 Upgrade Media
Install
Activate

This is the acid test according to me.

zrtom · 22 Oct 2009

gregrocker said:

Anyone else have a theory?

Three words. Windows Activation Technologies (formerly WGA).
Maybe try installing Microsoft Security Essentials and see whether it passes validation. That should be the final test (on the zeroed hard drive). Let's hope it passes.