Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

How to Do a Clean Install with an 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 to legally own 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 legally own 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.

OPTION ONE

A Normal Clean Install

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.

3. If your Windows should fail to activate, then pick up at step 2 in OPTION THREE below.

OPTION TWO

Through a Custom Install

   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.

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

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. Click on the Download button below to download the .bat file below, and save it to your desktop.
Activate_Windows_Upgrade_after_Clean_Install.bat


Download


3. Right click on the downloaded .bat file, and click on Run as administrator.

4. If prompted, click/tap on Run and Yes (UAC).
NOTE: If you like, you can stop getting the Run prompt by unblocking the downloaded .bat file.

5. You will now notice a command prompt quickly open and close while applying the changes to your registry.

6. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

7. Restart the computer.

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

OPTION FOUR

Double Installing Windows 7

   Note

This option is the same that was used to do a clean install of an upgrade copy of Windows 7. It's more work, but if the options above did not work for you, then this should since this is the most reliable option.

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. When finished with the clean install, do not or install any Windows Updates, drivers, or programs yet.

2. When finished with the clean install, start at step 4 at this link to do an in-place "upgrade" install with your upgrade Windows 7 installation disk from within the just now finished clean install of Windows 7.

3. When the in-place upgrade installation is completely finished, then manually activate Windows 7 with your product key number. You can now also install any Windows Updates drivers, and programs you like.
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Do a Upgrade Installation with Windows 7
• How to Do a Clean Installation with Windows 7
• How to Do a Custom Installation of Windows 7
• How to Create a Windows 7 Installation USB Key
• http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/30470-make-bootable-iso-student-d-l.html
• How to Partition the Hard Drive in a Windows 7 Install
• How to Install Windows 7 on Computer with Less than 512MB RAM
• How to Install Windows 7 Using "Unified Extensible Firmware Interface" (UEFI)

 

[Brink]

Hello Camr, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Only if you wanted to do a clean install each time.

 

[estcstm3]

Need some confirmation on the BOOTABLE dvd part...


I currently have vista 64 home premium and need to do a clean install to use Windows 7 Professional. I purchased the Windows 7 Pro and downloaded the ISO file to my desktop. Digital River now offers the standalone ISO

X15-65805/X15-65805.iso​

.
1) I have the iso on my desktop
2) I used CDBurnerXP and selected the

• 
  [*]"Burn ISO Image" Option

• 
  [*]I then choose the ISO from the desktop and clicked burn

Primary Question

• 
  [*]Do I now have a BOOTABLE dvd? Or do i need to make the DVD BOOTABLE?

Secondary Question

• 
  [*]What do I need to do now, how do I boot from the DVD to start my clean install?

• 
  [*]Once it starts to install are there any special settings I should be made aware of now instead of half way through?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[Chris White]

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.

I need to install W7 Home Premium. My PC is currently running build 7232, 64-bit, and my wife's PC is running build 7100, 32-bit.

During the install process, will it ask me to insert the install disk of the qualifying previous version? I have the XP disc for my PC, but don't have the Vista disc for my wife's PC because it came pre-installed from HP.

 

[daSpud]

....
During the install process, will it ask me to insert the install disk of the qualifying previous version? I have the XP disc for my PC, but don't have the Vista disc for my wife's PC because it came pre-installed from HP.

No it did not ask me for any disks. Disks don't matter anyway because there is no "key" associated with a disk.

The install process searches out installed versions. If you don't have an installed version then you have to use the registry mod at the beginning of this thread to set things straight before it will activate. I had a laptop with Vista where the HD had crashed. I booted from the upgrade disk and when asked about automatic activation I said yes. -- DON'T DO THAT.

This whole thing is a somewhat confusing mess (IMHO). They say one thing but something quite different is the way it works.

Read all the threads about the process and I think you will see what to do.

 

[mls]

Reg MOD

....
During the install process, will it ask me to insert the install disk of the qualifying previous version? I have the XP disc for my PC, but don't have the Vista disc for my wife's PC because it came pre-installed from HP.

No it did not ask me for any disks. Disks don't matter anyway because there is no "key" associated with a disk.

The install process searches out installed versions. If you don't have an installed version then you have to use the registry mod at the beginning of this thread to set things straight before it will activate. I had a laptop with Vista where the HD had crashed. I booted from the upgrade disk and when asked about automatic activation I said yes. -- DON'T DO THAT.

I installed Win 7 (upgrade disc) on a Toshiba laptop pre-installed with vista. My Laptop crashed yesterday, and subsequently required a format of the HDD.

When I tried to reisntall Win7, i had an error message that the KEY WAS INVALID.

I contacted MS who were happy with my explanation and verified the key was in fact valid. They explained that although the disc was an UPGRADE, they would talk me through the setup , which would involve altering the registry.

The process was to install without entering the KEY
Then once installation complete open regedit and search MEDIABOOT
Dbl click MEDIABOOTINSTALL and alter 1 to 0 then exit regedit
Open CMD with admin rights
then enter the following; cscript.exe slmgr.vbs -rearm
exit CMD then reboot
You can then goto activate win and enter your VALID procuct key.

REMEMBER you still need to own a previous version of win to legally do this

 

[Joshatdot]

I performed a Custom Install. I used a Live CD of Ubuntu to delete & repartition my HDD. I do not remember if I had unchecked the "Automatically activate Windows when I'm online box during the installation process."

Over the days & weeks, I was getting the Activate Windows popup. I tried to use my Upgrade Key, and got the 0xC004F061 error. So I guess my only options is #3?

 

[Brink]

Hello Josh,

That's what it looks like.

 

[Ballie]

I have done tried to do a clean install with an upgrade dicsc on a new formatted hdd and but when I type the product key in it says "the product key is not vaild" the key is correct and it worked when I used it on the same pc before I needed to re format, oh and its not conected to the internet as I need to get windows on so I can put my wep code in.

Any ideas

 

[Brink]

Hello Ballie,

What type (ex: OEM, student, retail) of Windows 7 do you have?

You may need to either do a phone activate or METHOD THREE in the tutorial instead.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Ballie]

Hello Ballie,

What type (ex: OEM, student, retail) of Windows 7 do you have?

You may need to either do a phone activate or METHOD THREE in the tutorial instead.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Its a retail win7 upgrade home pre, I couldn't get past the enter key code bit but in the end I used another win 7 oem upgrade key code which did get it to boot into win7 then I tried to activate the correct key code but had to do the phone thing but its all activated now. Thanks

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Ballie. I'm happy to hear that you got it activated now.

 

[dougwickstrom]

Thanks!

Followed your instructions and everything worked well. What a relief! I had installed a new hard drive and the Windows 7 installation was easy but this activation was a problem until I found your posts.

Thanks!

Doug Wickstrom

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Doug, and welcome to Seven Forums.

 

[shkramer]

The title says this is how to do a clean install of a retail version of the upgrade. Does this also apply to upgrades received from a computer manufacturer as a free upgrade? If so, do you need to use the upgrade assistant cd first, or just the operating system cd?

 

[Brink]

Hello Shkramer, and welcome to Seven Forums.

It varies with some OEM copies of Windows 7 like that, but you can backup anything that you do not want to lose to be sage and give it a try to see from the Windows 7 installation disc. Be sure that you have all of your devices driver installation files downloaded and saved first to have them handy after the installation.

 

[Helidoc]

Purchased and downloaded the upgrade 64 bit edition from Microsoft Store created an ISO and installed from boot using method 1, went without a hitch, wanted a clean install and thats what it gave me Thanks for the tutorial, read it prior to install incase something went wrong.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Helidoc.

 

[venucci]

I couldn't upgrade windows 7 from within windows xp (don't know why) so I needed a clean install, and with this tutorial it was very easy! Nice pics and clear description of every step, thnx a lot

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Venucci, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Doing a inplace upgrade to XP from Windows 7 is not an available option. Only a Custom or Clean install.

 

[valory]

I appreciate the good tutorial and helpful comments... My pc was built with Vista 64-bit Home Premium w/SP1. I have all of the discs used in the system install and also received a Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program DVD. I hope to do a clean install but have some questions...



Do I have to anything to my hard drive (for example uninstall any programs?) before proceeding with option 1? Since DVDs load automatically, when I reboot will the install automatically boot off the DVD? Please forgive me if these are silly questions! Also, what do I do if I need to reinstall Windows 7 in the future? Must I first install my Vista or just insert the 7 upgrade DVD? Thanks for your gracious help!