Pleez help! Dual boot:Win XP & Win 7 "upgrade" question

[Lex325]

Hi all,

This is my first post in this forum. I have tried to find the answer to my question on various forums with no definitive answer. Please shed some light if you can and know hat u are talking about.

I have a netbook running on N280 Atom with 2 GB of Ram and 2 partitioned drives at 72 GB each.

I have XP home edition installed on the C: drive and want to install Win 7 on the D: drive in order to dual boot.

The problem is that I have a Win 7 professional "upgrade" disk.

My question is: If I already have XP installed on the C: drive, will I have a problem (or is there any cons) with attempting to install Win 7 to the blank D: drive being that it's just an "upgrade" disk as opposed to a full OS disk?

Should I even try to do this?

The reason I'm even thinking of attempting this is because I get a super discount on the upgrade being that I am an adult atending a university. You cannot beat the student discount of $29.99 for Win 7 professional.

I don't want to shell out $200 for the full disk unless I absolutely have to... please help knowledgeable people!!!!!!!!!!

 

[sup3rsprt]

One problem. You talk about dual booting, but according to the license agreement you're not supposed to use XP anymore once you've used it as a basis for the upgrade.

By the way, are you sure that isn't the full version? Now that I think about it, people used the term "upgrade" with the student discount even though it was actually the full OS.

Anyhow, if you aren't worried about it possibly invalidating your copy of Windows XP, go for it and let us know how it goes.

 

[Lex325]

Thanks sup3rsprt...

From what I've read on the "student website" it's just the upgrade that MS is discounting. The full OS is the same price as everyone gets it for.

 

[sup3rsprt]

you have the disc already right?

pop it in, reboot and select DVD-ROM as first boot device (to boot from the Win7 media). Then see if you can do a clean install. Because my guess is that you have the full version of Windows 7.

 

[Lex325]

Ok well here's what I understnad from the forums I have read so far...

Ther basically is no real dofference from the upgrade disk and the full OS disk besides the product key you are supplied with to activate the disk you own.\

We'll see... The issue is that I just purchased a pretty cool netbook that I like, and I don't want to go ahead and even attempt to install "Win 7 upgrade" as a seperate partition unless I absolutely know for sure, or get verification fron someone knowledgeable, that it will work the way I want it to.

Which is: To be able to dual boot and have the choice to run either Win 7 or XP with no changes to the original OS.

 

[sup3rsprt]

did you boot from the DVD yet? because it's not going to hurt anything to boot from the DVD and clean install onto a separate partition.

 

[Lex325]

With all due respect, I totally understand what you mean. I just want to know if that is able to be done with the Win 7 upgrade disk that I have. I know that a clean install can be done with a full win 7 OS disk.

I just need to know if the same can be accomplished on a blank partitioned drive, with a computer that currently has XP installed on a seperate partioned drive, using the "upgrade version" of Win 7 as opposed to the full version disk.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated from someone knowledgeable...

Thank you

 

[sup3rsprt]

if all you got was an upgrade disc, then you got ripped off. Because everyone else gets the full version for $29.99.

 

[Lex325]

Again, with all due respect, could you please tell me where I can find the "full version" $29.99? I haven't seen that anywhere and would like to take advantage. I have not purchased the upgrade yet and would definitely rather have the full version for the same price.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[gregrocker]

If you have a retail version disk then boot from and install to your second partition, move your files over and reinstall your programs, while keeping the dual boot so you can go back to XP if needed. But like most of us you will probably never go back and either hide the XP partition or wipe the whole HDD and do a clean reinstall. I have also deleted the XP, moved the 7 over onto it's space and recovered the boot manager with Startup Repair several times now, but it is risky.

An upgrade disk won't install from boot, start it from the XP environment and attempt the custom install (which it requires with XP) to a second partition to see if it will do this as it did with Vista - experts are split on whether it will continue this way with Win7. If not, start the disk from the XP environment and do a custom install over the XP, which will save your files in windows.old for redistribution (then delete it, it's big).

Once you get it configured like you want, use the excellent Win 7 Disk Imaging backup to create an image of your installation you save externally (and to a recovery partition you create if you want) so that you can easily and flawlessly re-image your Win7 without having to ever reinstall XP, Win7 or mess with activation again.

 

[Lex325]

Thanks Greg...

I guess I just have to grow some balls and try it to see what happens.

I have a cool little netbook that come packaged with a lot of proprietary programs and crap that almost seem useful and I do not want to take the risk of losing them cuz they are obviosly not supported in Win 7.

That's basically my issue. Well... that and I dont want to waste $30 if I'm going to need to go out and buy a full OS Win 7 disk for $200+

 

[sup3rsprt]

Again, with all due respect, could you please tell me where I can find the "full version" $29.99? I haven't seen that anywhere and would like to take advantage. I have not purchased the upgrade yet and would definitely rather have the full version for the same price.

Thanks for all your help.

Microsoft Student - Windows 7

The student windows 7 version avail thru 741 is the FULL VERSION. I ended up emailing Digital River, the people that pairs up with Microsoft to sell their product online and got this OFFICIAL answer:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for choosing Windows 7 Online store.

We understand that you are interested to purchase Windows 7 Upgrade
through our online store.

We apologize for the confusion.

The Windows 7 offered in this promotion is a full version. You can
install this product even though
you do not have a previous Operating System installed in your computer
or if you want to make a multi
boot using Windows 7. The "Upgrade" included in the product name is just
because Windows 7 is the
latest Operating System Windows developed.

Sincerely,
Joanna A.
Windows 7 Offer online store
Customer Service