W7 Versions Versus Keys

seekermeister · Nov 19, 2009

I'm shopping for another copy of W7 to install on my second rig, and I have decided to get the full version, rather than the upgrade, as on this machine. By far, most of the offers that I have found are for both x32 and x64, but a few of them is for either one version or the other. They claim to be factory sealed, but I suspect that the seller has opened the box and selling it twice.

This raised the question in my mind whether there is a specific disk for the full version, regardless of whether it is x32 or x64? In other words, if I had a key for the full version, could I use the upgrade disk to install it, and if I did, would the upgrade disk doing a clean install equal using a full retail disk doing the same?

Zidane24 · Nov 19, 2009

seekermeister said:
I'm shopping for another copy of W7 to install on my second rig, and I have decided to get the full version, rather than the upgrade, as on this machine. By far, most of the offers that I have found are for both x32 and x64, but a few of them is for either one version or the other. They claim to be factory sealed, but I suspect that the seller has opened the box and selling it twice.

This raised the question in my mind whether there is a specific disk for the full version, regardless of whether it is x32 or x64? In other words, if I had a key for the full version, could I use the upgrade disk to install it?

Indeed you could...

richc46 · Nov 20, 2009

I bought my copy of Win7 during the preorder. I received 2 upgrade discs for Home premium; one for 32 bit the other for 64 bit and of course one key. It is my choice of the bit that I want. Once the DVD is in the machine, if you do not supply your key it will upgrade to the OS ver that it finds. For example I had Vista Home Prem, the DVD will give me Win7 HP. The Ver that you are entitled to is identified by the key number. It is best to wait until you have your OS installed and tested before you give your number. To make a long story short, as Zidane said "yes"

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

richc46 said:
I bought my copy of Win7 during the preorder. I received 2 upgrade discs for Home premium; one for 32 bit the other for 64 bit and of course one key. It is my choice of the bit that I want. Once the DVD is in the machine, if you do not supply your key it will upgrade to the OS ver that it finds. For example I had Vista Home Prem, the DVD will give me Win7 HP. The Ver that you are entitled to is identified by the key number. It is best to wait until you have your OS installed and tested before you give your number. To make a long story short, as Zidane said "yes"

That's not exactly what I had in mind. I know that it will install an upgrade according to set parameters, but if an OEM key was used with an upgrade disk, or a student key was used with an upgrade disk, or as I previously asked, a full retail key was used with an upgrade disk, would all of these work properly.

The thing that caused me to think about this is that every vender that I have found online is selling every other version of W7, except the full retail. That gave me the impression that the install disks themselves were different. In the past, upgrades weren't equal to full retail, and the latter was the preferred means of installing. Of course, the most important aspect of full retail is not having to be concerned about having to install on a rig other than the one that it was previously installed on.

richc46 · Nov 20, 2009

In my usual confusing way I was trying to say,yes, the DVD are the same. The key determines what you are entitled to.

Zidane24 · Nov 20, 2009

richc46 said:
In my usual confusing way I was trying to say,yes, the DVD are the same. The key determines what you are entitled to.

Sometimes simplicity is best...like my post above

It never hurts to know they "why" and "how" behind the yes though

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

richc46 said:
In my usual confusing way I was trying to say,yes, the DVD are the same. The key determines what you are entitled to.

It wasn't that your response was confusing, it is just that I tend to want to do is to dot the i and cross the t, when reading most anything. I spend a lot of time asking questions when buying on eBay, and sometimes I think that I annoy them.

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

This also makes it somewhat more difficult to understand just how cheap keys are being sold on eBay. They are at a fraction of the cost of a full set. I know that this has been discussed in previous posts, but I don't think that all of those offers are scams. If the keys are the real deciding factor, then people are paying a lot for fancy paper and plastic.

poin2 · Nov 20, 2009

seekermeister said:
....That's not exactly what I had in mind. I know that it will install an upgrade according to set parameters, but if an OEM key was used with an upgrade disk, or a student key was used with an upgrade disk, or as I previously asked, a full retail key was used with an upgrade disk, would all of these work properly.

The thing that caused me to think about this is that every vender that I have found online is selling every other version of W7, except the full retail. That gave me the impression that the install disks themselves were different. In the past, upgrades weren't equal to full retail, and the latter was the preferred means of installing. Of course, the most important aspect of full retail is not having to be concerned about having to install on a rig other than the one that it was previously installed on.

The "student" keys are no different from "Retail."

I don't believe you want to try mixing OEM and Retail keys and software.

I've read mixed comments on people attempting to mix Retail and Upgrade keys and software. Some say no problem, some say the software pops up to say the key doesn't match the version installed, etc.

Yes, the install discs themselves are different. The vast majority of people have the prior Windows OS and so are fine with the upgrade version. And those going onto a new computer with a blank hard drive tend to be building something themselves and so grab an OEM / System Builder's thing.

poin2 · Nov 20, 2009

seekermeister said:
This also makes it somewhat more difficult to understand just how cheap keys are being sold on eBay. They are at a fraction of the cost of a full set. I know that this has been discussed in previous posts, but I don't think that all of those offers are scams. If the keys are the real deciding factor, then people are paying a lot for fancy paper and plastic.

Frankly, I'd bet just about every single thing on eBay where they're selling the key and the key alone is indeed "dishonest" in one form or another. If they're not MSDN / MSDNAA / Technet accounts getting misused, they're students reselling their $30 versions or something comparable. The way most are phrased, I'd tend to bet it's a handful of subscription accounts getting misused.

I'd also note that there aren't that many people selling them, and those who are tend to have little or no prior feedback.

And for what it's worth, I sent an inquiry through eBay to one seller to confirm the keys were "retail," and simply got a reply back from eBay themselves a couple days later that the eBay account had been one that was hacked, all their auctions thus terminated, end of story.

Anyway, I'd stay clear of that stuff.

And I wouldn't go buying something on eBay relying on it to work with software I have from elsewhere that doesn't "match."

darkassain · Nov 20, 2009

as people said the only difference on the dvd itself is the ei.cfg which is checked on install and the key...
the most important stuff (install.wim among other things) is still the same

there is a article on Paul's site where if for some reason you had a genuinely licenced win xp, vista and i believe 2000 you can do a clean install from a upgrade media and let that install allow the key to activate...
so pretty much if you are not able to activate install you can try this....
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

ignatzatsonic · Nov 20, 2009

Newegg is selling the full retail for $183.

Out of curiosity, why are you choosing full for this machine?

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

poin2,

I will probably take your advise and stay away from separate keys, and I shall get the full retail version, because I do not want the OS tied to any particular hardware. The offers that I have been looking at recently were supposed to be factory seal boxes, and the photos of the boxes looked right. The ones that I'm still leary of are the ones that look the same, except that they only offer one disk instead of two. Though they still have photos of the regular box, it sounds as though it doesn't come with the box, and if anything is factory sealed, it would have to be the envelope that they came in. Since 99% of the offers are boxed, I suspect that the individual disks aren't legit.

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

ignatzatsonic said:
Newegg is selling the full retail for $183.

Out of curiosity, why are you choosing full for this machine?

I wouldn't buy from Newegg at half that price, but my reasons for that are not something that I intend to discuss. I believe that I answered your question regarding my choice of versions in my previous post to poin2.

richc46 · Nov 20, 2009

seekermeister said:
poin2,

I will probably take your advise and stay away from separate keys, and I shall get the full retail version, because I do not want the OS tied to any particular hardware. The offers that I have been looking at recently were supposed to be factory seal boxes, and the photos of the boxes looked right. The ones that I'm still leary of are the ones that look the same, except that they only offer one disk instead of two. Though they still have photos of the regular box, it sounds as though it doesn't come with the box, and if anything is factory sealed, it would have to be the envelope that they came in. Since 99% of the offers are boxed, I suspect that the individual disks aren't legit.

Any version, other than OEM, is not tied to specific hardware. The upgrade version can be used on any computer, as long as it is one at a time.

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

It is true that the upgrade can be used on a different rig, if removed from the first, but it is still partially tied to the hardware. If I pull a harddrive from one machine and install it in the second, it will have to be reactivated. I guess the same is true for the full retail, but I don't believe that reactivation would be as touchy.

I just removed my WS2K8 installation, because after some shuffling of hardware, when it wanted to reactivate, it gave a message saying that it had been moved too much and refused to reactivate, even though there was only one move with only one major hardware change (motherboard) that it would have been able to know about. I got WS2K8 from a person who got it from eBay, so I suspect that it was OEM, but I saw nothing that said so.

darkassain · Nov 20, 2009

seekermeister said:
I just removed my WS2K8 installation, because after some shuffling of hardware, when it wanted to reactivate, it gave a message saying that it had been moved too much and refused to reactivate, even though there was only one move with only one major hardware change (motherboard) that it would have been able to know about. I got WS2K8 from a person who got it from eBay, so I suspect that it was OEM, but I saw nothing that said so.

i personally have not done this with winserver 2008
but with xp and vista (and 2003 xp and vista were OEM while 2003 was a student download) all i did was call the ms activation number and someone oversees (after the machine on phoneline failed to help) asked me a few questions and gave me a activation code and had me activated (what i did was replace some failing hardware on the machine a nic and a video card and plop came up the windows needs to be reactivated) ...

seekermeister · Nov 20, 2009

Yes, I have done the same in the past, but when attempting to activate online, all that it said was that it wasn't able to connect to the activation server, not flatly tell me that it would not be allowed to reactivate because of too many hardware changes, as it did with WS2K8. If I needed or liked that OS enough, I would have attempted to activate on the telephone, but I really wasn't using it very much at all. I only bought it out of curiousity.

Barman58 · Nov 20, 2009

As far as I am aware all versions of Windows 7 have the limitation on the number of hardware upgrades allowed. The difference between Retail and OEM is one of the amount of leeway Microsoft's policy allows.

If you have a retail copy it is likely that you will not be asked the same depth of questioning, as an OEM copy, if you end up talking to an actual Rep.

The old issue of tying a Licence to the bios is the work of certain OEM manufacturers rather than Microsoft

I have always found that Microsoft are very helpful when a re-activation is required and as long as the reason given is reasonable it is a non issue

nate42nd · Nov 20, 2009

darkassain said:
as people said the only difference on the dvd itself is the ei.cfg which is checked on install and the key...
the most important stuff (install.wim among other things) is still the same

there is a article on Paul's site where if for some reason you had a genuinely licenced win xp, vista and i believe 2000 you can do a clean install from a upgrade media and let that install allow the key to activate...
so pretty much if you are not able to activate install you can try this....
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

I can confirm that if you extract the contents of an install DVD and remove the ei.cfg file, it will then let you install ANY version of Windows 7. I used this method to make an install USB drive which I have used to install Windows 7 Pro and Home Premium. I then use the key I purchased to activate Windows. It's really working good.

When you remove that file it will give you a choice (like Vista) to install any version.

FYI

W7 Versions Versus Keys

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