Windows 7 - Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

   Information

This will show you how to do a Clean Install using a retail Upgrade Windows 7 installation disc.

   Warning

Remember that you need a valid qualifying previous version of Windows to use a Upgrade Windows 7, and to stop using (or uninstall) the qualifying OS while you have the upgrade installed. Microsoft only made doing a clean install from a upgrade Windows 7 possible to make it more convenient so you do not have to reinstall both the old Windows version (ex: Vista) and upgrade to Windows 7 everytime you needed or wanted to reinstall.

If you do not have a valid qualifying previous version of Windows, then you are violating the terms of Microsoft's Windows 7 End User License Agreement and could get your product key number invalidated by Microsoft. Plus, it is considered illegal.

For more about this, please see: Microsoft SMB Community Blog : Regardless of what any hack says, a Windows 7 Upgrade is an Upgrade. What you need to know.

   Note

This option has been confirmed by me to be able to install from a formated blank drive or system, and install the retail upgrade Windows 7 and activate it without doing anything else.

1. Do a clean install at boot without checking the Automatically activate Windows when I'm online box during the installation process.

2. When the installation is finished, then manually activate Windows 7 with your product key number.

   Note

This option will let you do a clean install of Windows 7 without formating the current Windows installation to have your current Windows installation backed up to the Windows.old folder during the installation of your retail upgrade Windows 7. This way you can copy any files back that you want from the C:\Windows.old folder (previous installation) back into your new installation afterwards.

1. Do a custom install at boot or from within your current Windows installation without checking the Automatically activate Windows when I'm online box during the installation process.

2. When the installation is finished, then manually activate Windows 7 with your product key number.

3. Copy any files that you want back from the C:\Windows.old folder into where you want it in you new installation.

4. You can now delete the Windows.old folder using Disk Cleanup to have a clean install now.

   Note

If you get a activation error code 0xc004f061 while doing OPTION ONE or OPTION TWO above, then you will need to use this option instead documented by Paul Thurrott's Supersite Blog: Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media.

1. Do a clean install of your upgrade Windows 7 at boot without checking the Automatically activate Windows when I'm online box during the installation process.
NOTE: If you already did this from OPTION ONE above and got a activation error, then skip this step and just proceed to step 2 below instead. There's no need to reinstall again.

2. Ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot to finish installing. (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case). If there are, then restart the computer to let them finish installing before proceeding to step 3 below.

3. Click on the Download button below to download the MediaBootInstall.reg file, and save it to your desktop.

4. Double click on the downloaded MediaBootInstall.reg file to merge it, then approve the merge.
NOTE: This will change the MediaBootInstall value from 1 to 0 at the registry location below automatically for you.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE

5. Open a elevated command prompt.

6. In the elevated command prompt, type slmgr -rearm and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

7. Click on OK. (See screenshot below)

8. Close the elevated command prompt, and restart the computer.

9. When the computer is finished restarting, then manually activate Windows 7 with your product key number.

   Quote: Originally Posted by Pual Thurrott

The method described above should work for just about anyone, with the understanding that any pending Windows Updates could screw things up. If that happens, just shut down, restart, rerun the command line sequence (steps 5 to 8), and retry activation.

   Note

This option is the same that was used to do a clean install of a upgrade copy of Vista. It's more work, but if the options above did not work for you, then this should.

1. Do a clean install of your upgrade Windows 7 at boot without checking the Automatically activate Windows when I'm online box during the installation process, and do not activate Windows 7 or install any Windows Updates when finished with this clean install.

2. When finished, do a inplace "upgrade" install with your upgrade Windows 7 installation disk from within the just now finished clean install of Windows 7 from step 1.

3. When the installation is completely finished from step 2, then manually activate Windows 7 with your product key number. You can now also install Windows Updates.