STILL confused about "Upgrade" installation process.

timsart,
Great post. The MS sites you have links to have been up for quite a while and I believe that the left hand of MS does not know what the right hand is doing.

This quote from the MS store is interesting.

" You qualify for Windows 7 upgrade versions if you are running genuine Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 on your PC."

Now we know that Activation is one method they might use to Validate a users legal position in regard to their licence. But if memory serves, Win 2000 was pre activation and how can MS validate an upgrade install from this OS.


I also am amazed that this was not all cleared up way back before pre ordering specials were anounced.

halp said:

Nosmo said:

This was a recent communication from an MS employee


Hello Nosmo

To use an Upgrade, it is required that you have a Qualified copy of Windows to Upgrade from. A "Qualified" copy of Windows (almost by Definition) would also have to be a Genuine copy of Windows. That was the requirerment for Upgrading to XP, That was the requirerment for Upgrading to Vista and it's the requirment for upgradeing to Windows 7. The only difference is that Win7 enforces this by requiring, that the Windows being Upgraded, also be Activated. The total time added to the whole reinstall process would be (best case) less then a second, by Activating over the internet, and (worst case) around 5 mins, by Activating by Phone.


You ask " How do you activate XP the second time around when needing to re install."

You activate XP by the same way you did the first time around. You install XP using the XP Product Key then follow the 'Activate over the Internet' or 'Activate by Phone' wizard.

Hope that help clarify the process,
Darin mS

* Marked As Answer byDarin Smith MSMSFT, ModeratorWednesday, August 12, 2009 6:58 PM

Not looking good. Who is Darin? A moderator on a Microsoft forum? Just trying to gauge credibility.

Darin Smith works for MS in the Activation/Validation dept and also moderates on one of MS's forums titled " Genuine Advantage Validation Issues ". Part of TechNet I believe.
I have no doubt of his authenticity.

His quote, in bold type above, seems to me to be quite emphatic.

Nosmo said:

timsart,
Great post. The MS sites you have links to have been up for quite a while and I believe that the left hand of MS does not know what the right hand is doing.

This quote from the MS store is interesting.

" You qualify for Windows 7 upgrade versions if you are running genuine Windows Vista, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 on your PC."

Now we know that Activation is one method they might use to Validate a users legal position in regard to their licence. But if memory serves, Win 2000 was pre activation and how can MS validate an upgrade install from this OS.


I also am amazed that this was not all cleared up way back before pre ordering specials were anounced.

I agree. The Windows 2000 "activation" issue is one that has me collecting this information. That and the contradictory answers I've received from various Microsoft employees via chat, email and phone since the time that the pre-release specials were announced. (As well as contradictory statements from MVP's in the forums.)

As I stated, I plan to make some noise if the upgrade versions cannot be used as outlined on the links I provided in my last post. :)

I myself plan to attempt to "upgrade" to a clean hard drive partition using Windows 2000 as my legal "qualifying" product. Guess we will see what happens.

Microsoft appears to have the usage of the term "upgrade" somewhat confused at this point.

There is the license issue of qualifying for upgrading from prior versions.

Then there is an "in-place" upgrade or "clean install" upgrade and reinstalling as "clean install" using your upgrade media that you have proper rights to at a later date. (hard drive fails, etc.)

Plus, the "free" upgrade from Vista offer for new purchases of Vista from June 26 to Jan. 31, 2010. (A sales/marketing use of the term.)

The fact that they appear not to be careful to always modify "upgrade" to indicate whether they are talking about licensing or a software technical procedure or "sales" causes a lot of the present confusion.

Their published upgrade procedure page does seem to be the official answer to that confusion.

Installing and reinstalling Windows

Guess we'll see sometime after October 22nd.

I really like the Windows 7 RC that I am currently running, but this “Upgrade” path is ridiculous, in fact if I had known that Windows 7 was going to require that you have an activated XP/Vista install on the drive before you upgraded I would not have pre-ordered the upgrade, I would have gotten an OEM edition instead, but of course Microsoft didn’t tell us until AFTER the pre-order that we would be put through much misery installing what they are calling an “Upgrade”

Here is why this Windows 7 “Upgrade” will not be a trivial process, and in fact I would say Microsoft was purposely being vague, and withheld pertinent information about what work will be involved with the “Upgrade” until now. Here is what some of us will have to do every time we re-install.

• Retrieve your Win98, 2000, XP upgrade disk so you can install your XP/Vista upgrade.
• Retrieve your XP or Vista upgrade disk, key code, install and activate (probably requiring a phone call, with much pleading and begging for an activation code that you have to enter manually)
• Then you can finally install your Windows 7 “Upgrade”, where you again enter your key code and activate (hopefully without having to call and beg for activation, at the 1st few re-installs anyway, after that its back to begging and pleading on the phone)

This adds at least another hour to the process for someone that has to re-install their system, which needs to happen somewhat regularly with Windows if you want to keep the performance up. While this hour is somewhat trivial for someone doing it themselves if they have kept up with all their disks and key codes, others will end up not having all the required disks and key codes so they will be stuck buying a full version of windows after they have purchased the upgrade. And even if they have all their disks and key codes they may not be able to convince Microsoft to activate their older OS's.


The upgrade process was perfectly reasonable in XP where it just asked for the original disk, this, however is completely insane. So yes, a saved image will now be another required step for running Windows.

As of today, the Microsoft store order page no longer states that Windows 2000 qualifies for upgrade version of Windows 7.

It now states:

"You qualify for Windows 7 upgrade versions if you're running genuine Windows Vista or Windows XP on your PC. If you’re running Windows 2000, you’ll need to purchase the full product and do a clean install."

Windows 7 - Buy and download from Microsoft Store

Glad I saved the old versions of this page.

Guess I'll be calling MS sales in the morning to "clarify" this change for myself.

Will post again once I have anything new on this issue.

Hi,

Yes it is odd.

Could you post up a copy of the old page?

Thanks.

As of now, nothing has been made official in terms of how the upgrade path will go, if it can be used to do a clean install, etc. The problem is, too many people jumped on the upgrades early, without bothering to do their research to see that nothing was made official.

Halp, I understand this is a confusing issue with no concrete answers, but getting snippy with people who are responding to your thread certainly isn't going to help. If you are changing hard drives often, then you can simply clone your install to a new hard drive. That's always been possible, and certainly won't require a reinstall.

Honestly, if it is that much of a problem, you can always cancel your order and purchase a retail license. If you need several licenses, fit the requirements, and keep the rules, you can get yourself a TechNet subscription, which easily pays for itself.

SIW2 said:

Hi,

Yes it is odd.

Could you post up a copy of the old page?

Thanks.

Sure can.

Rather than trying screen shots, I'm attaching a zip file with the upgrade pages from 7-7-09, 7-12-09 and 9-24-09. (saved complete html pages)

Unzip using folders option so that the sub folders for the pages unzip correctly.

Hope this works.