Where is the Best Place to Purchase Windows 7 ?

Hi,

I have already gone ahead on bought Parallels 7 Desktop. Is that all ok ?

Can I buy the cheaper upgrade version on Windows 7 and activate this on my Apple Mac using Parallels 7 Desktop and can I get an telephone support to help me do this.

Hope you can help.

ADRIAN HIBBERT

badger906 said:

I buy all my computer wares from ebuyer.com they have the best customer service and fastest postage within the UK.

The retail full version contains both 64 and 32bit, there is a lot of difference but the main one is your not limited to 4gb ram with 64 bit.

Have a look at parallels desktop 9, its a great program that I run on my mac, that runs windows in a virtual machine, with in mac osx, it hides windows within osx so its like you've got 2 operating systems in one, your start menu is along the top with the mac stuff and its not a windowed virtual experience its all fluid with mac. Way better than dual booting

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Hi there
Be careful when activating Windows on a Virtual Machine --- before activating it make sure that your virtual machine is configured to how you want it -- changing the Virtual Hardware (i.e changing the power on configuration settings of the Virtual Machine) significantly could cause Windows to request re activation.

As for the Upgrade version I think although I'm not sure that it might check for "qualifying" products --although there are some threads saying how you can do a FRESH - i.e a totally clean install using the upgrade version.

If you can do this then the upgrade version will work.

The proceedure for installing W7 on a Virtual Machine is just the same as installing the product on a real physical machine.

Cheeers
jimbo

Ooo it is version 7 your right. I think lol can't remember.

I'm not sure one the upgrade version being used, but I'm sure using the same clean install method mentioned earlier will work.

I just installed mine as normal and activated it lol, never had an issue. Its an amazing bit of kit paralles desktop. When you try and open a .exe file within mac it will automatically boot windows and open it if you haven't got it open

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If you haven't got Windows on your computer using an upgrade disc is no use as you must have a previous windows OS to upgrade from. You could have bought the disc I previously offered which was a Bargain price. This would have given you the option to boot whatever way you prefer. Booting either Dual or Virtual.

Runckle_SP1 said:

If you haven't got Windows on your computer using an upgrade disc is no use as you must have a previous windows OS to upgrade from. You could have bought the disc I previously offered which was a Bargain price. This would have given you the option to boot whatever way you prefer. Booting either Dual or Virtual.

Not strictly true.

Providing you have a qualifying upgrade operating system it doesn't have to be installed to upgrade to Windows 7.

You can clean install with your upgrade disc, as this tutorial shows.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

Since XP you are not asked about a qualifier during install. Instead the disk scans the HD to see any other OS and if so, allows the use of Upgrade version key during install. If the HD is blank, new or wiped, you'll need to use the quick registry or double upgrade workarounds given in the tutorial SeaVixen posted to activate after install.

This is indeed on the honor system but under the EULA you need a qualifying XP or Vista which came with the machine, or a full retail version which is not being used while it is serving as qualifier.

seavixen32 said:

Runckle_SP1 said:

If you haven't got Windows on your computer using an upgrade disc is no use as you must have a previous windows OS to upgrade from. You could have bought the disc I previously offered which was a Bargain price. This would have given you the option to boot whatever way you prefer. Booting either Dual or Virtual.

Not strictly true.

Providing you have a qualifying upgrade operating system it doesn't have to be installed to upgrade to Windows 7.

You can clean install with your upgrade disc, as this tutorial shows.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

I think you'll find this very relevant. I have 2 upgraded computers and 1 has been Invalidated by clean installing.

You'll need to read the rest of the tutorial quoted above: Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

After install do one of the workarounds given to activate Upgrade version on a cleaned or new HD - otherwise Upgrade version wouldn't survive a HD failure.

Easiest is the registry edit:

OPTION THREE
Clean Install with a Registry Workaround for Error Code 0xc004f061

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 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.

We have advised this tens of thousands of times without failure, while the tutorial has had over a million views.

This would mean that if you are a student you could get Windows 7 full copy for as little as £30 what a bargain. I'll have to do that from now on...