Windows 7: a little complicated...

half a year back or so i built my own system, and it turned out dope. my dad was paying for most of it and wanted to keep as low on budget as possible and had me find the cheapest copy of vista to buy. i found a $90 download of vista ultimate that i burned to a dvd and installed and everything worked perfectly. up until a couple weeks ago i have been getting a TON of error messages telling me my copy of windows isn't genuine and i had a bad CD key. i looked back at the version i bought and realized it was a sketchy place i got it from and shouldn't have gotten it, but the sight was shut down, probably busted, and couldn't do anything about it. my dad works for the military and he got me a backup disc version they used for the military ppl to install instead. he gave me 2 dvds,one was straight windows vista for HP or Compaq pcs with 32 and 64 bit versions on it and the other was a vista business 32bit version for Dell. the tech ppl at my dad's work told me one or the other should work. the HP version didn't work, and the Dell one i got to the install screen so i'm guessing it would work. what i want to do however is get windows 7 home premium 64bit version, hopefully the upgrade way. i was thinking it could maybe work if i installed the vista buisiness version with a legit CD key and then upgrade to windows 7 premium. i wanted to know if this would work, what all the complications would be and possibly what steps i should take to get to windows 7 home premium from where i am now. i already backed up all my stuff on an external hard drive so i could do a clean install if i needed to.
thanks

Hi KM and welcome

We cant give you help on "backup versions they used" not legit.

Your best bet. Buy a copy like the rest of us.

Sorry dude but......

Ken J+

You can use Windows 7 Upgrade to do a fresh install.

Nothing from your prior Vista pirated/loaned disks/material will be required.

if you can do a clean install from windows upgrade why is there a full version, i thought you had to have a upgrade license or something for windows upgrade to work

Lemmy -

Good question. It has to do with the Upgrade also being the Repair install in Windows 7. And because 6 million beta-tested Windows 7, MS didn't want to inconvenience them with having to reinstall XP/Vista.

The workaround given below is even being given out by MS tech support:

http://community.winsupersite.com/bl...he-answer.aspx

The absolute best deal is the Family 3Pack of Home Premium for $150. Your Dad could outfit all of your computers legally with that. Just keep shared key tightly held and only on 3 computers at a time.

You will find that passing around Windows is a guaranteed route to activation failure, just as certain as using cracktivations. It is only a matter of time. Overkill.

looks pretty good, is it legal and everything? nothing that i'd get screwed for later?

Perfectly legal, and endorsed by Microsoft as such...

It is a convenience allowed by MS mainly because 6 million beta testers would have had to otherwise reinstall Vista/XP they had long-abandoned. It also has to do with the fact that an Upgrade is also a repair install.

MS has only issued warnings that this is a convenience only and does not replace the EULA restrictions that one must have a qualifying XP/Vista on hand in order to use the Upgrade. At some point in the future if a reinstall became necessary, it could conceivably escalate to an activation call with a person at MS who might want the qualifying key number to activate Upgrade. This is only speculation.

Perhaps the greatest reassurance is that millions installed Vista used this workaround by installing Upgrade over itself (same fix) and none have reported having repercussions.

Plus, you never have to reinstall (either) again anyway if you save externally a Windows 7 Backup Image, just reimage your HD or a replacement in 15 minutes from the DVD's repair console.