Is a Second Clean Install Possible?

Well that answers one question. Can I install my upgrade version of Win 7 on my Desktop and also on my laptop. I gather the answer is no, you can only get Win 7 to validate on one machine; so 4 machines, 4 separate copies of Win 7. Ugh!

Next question.

I have been running an upgrade installation of Win 7 for months now, currently that's the RC 7100 version. I'm going to be an unhappy customer if I have to reinstall dreaded Vista which I own, in order to install the retail version of Win 7. That's a lot of work for 4 different machines including all the Apps and data.

Didn't Win 7 validate my Vista install and won't that carry over to the retail Win 7 upgrade?

Thanks all....

Roll

MS has announced you can use the activated RC to upgrade using Win7 upgrade, but as with XP it will be a Custom clean install which can overwrite the RC or be installed to another partition or second HDD. But be sure to make an image since if it otherwise needed reinstall you would have to use XP/Vista once RC expires!

You can reinstall the underlying XP/Vista (or RC til it expires) for the purpose of reinstalling the upgrade. In fact the underlying systems are not disabled or deactivated but only unuseable according to the license agreement except for reinstall. (Source: Technet)

Backup imaging is the way to go here so that reinstalls may never again be necessary. It is my favorite feature of Windows 7: 20 minutes to image my entire HDD, 20 minutes to reimage it. I store the image in a primary Recovery partition and on an external in case of HDD failure.

gregrocker said:

MS has announced you can use the activated RC to upgrade using Win7 upgrade, but as with XP it will be a Custom clean install which can overwrite the RC or be installed to another partition or second HDD. But be sure to make an image since if it otherwise needed reinstall you would have to use XP/Vista once RC expires!


Backup imaging is the way to go here so that reinstalls may never again be necessary. It is my favorite feature of Windows 7: 20 minutes to image my entire HDD, 20 minutes to reimage it. I store the image in a primary Recovery partition and on an external in case of HDD failure.

Good news about installing the retail upgrade version of Win 7 over the Release Candidate version even if it has to be a clean install.

Regarding the Win 7 backup image, is it a true sector by sector image? An exact duplicate like Ghost (Symantec) creates or just a more traditional backup function?

Thanks, Roll

Roll said:

Regarding the Win 7 backup image, is it a true sector by sector image? An exact duplicate like Ghost (Symantec) creates or just a more traditional backup function?

Thanks, Roll

Doesn't specify, but I've reimaged a half dozen times on computers here and it works flawlessly.