Generic Win7 vs. OEM disc for clean install?

Hi,

I thought that I had posted this last night, but no sign of it, so I'm thinking that I must have just taken a look at the preview and forgotten to submit -- sorry Mods, if this is a duplicate go ahead and kill it.

Well I've got a nasty infection on my Dell XPS Studio, and at this point think that the easiest thing would be to do a clean install. Dell's Win7 installation is quite bloated, what I'd really like to do is install from my generic Win7 Upgrade disc, downloaded from the Microsoft Store and previously installed on my XPS 410. I do have Dell's disk for installing their required drivers, etc.

Would I be likely to run into any problems using this disc instead of Dell's OEM disk, in particular with validation etc., but possibly anything else which I haven't thought of?

Also, this machine is 64-bit, I've forgotten but does the same Win7 disc provide the option for either 32 or 64?

Thank you, papilio

There shouldn't be any problems with basic installation as you can use the product key from your current installation with this other DVD without any issues.

For the normal versions, there are separate installers for 32 and 64 bit Win7. The 32 bit .iso is about 2.44GB in size; the 64 bit, 3.15GB.

I'm not sure if the retail upgrade version will accept an OEM license key. If not, you can prepare a generic installer by deleting the ei.cfg file. (A web search should provide the details.) You may as well do it from a bootable USB key drive:

Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7

(It's faster than from a DVD, anyway.)

Thanks guys -- I'll give it a try, nothing to lose I suppose!
papilio

ps. I've forgotten how I did it last time -- how does one indicate the posts which have helped to resolve the problem. I'd like to mark all three.

papilio said:

Thanks guys -- I'll give it a try, nothing to lose I suppose!
papilio

ps. I've forgotten how I did it last time -- how does one indicate the posts which have helped to resolve the problem. I'd like to mark all three.

The little scales are for thanking someone for a helpful post and the red triangle will let you request a thread be marked solved.

Thanks derekimo.

papilio said:

Thanks derekimo.

You're welcome papilio.