Beware of student downloads looking too good to be true

There are all sorts of posts from students that believe they have upgrade licenses and are installing successfully, booting to blank drives etc.

It seems these guys got full installs not upgrades.

The student windows 7 version available thru www.win741.com is the FULL VERSION.

The 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

Kari,

Actually you are wrong in your assumption. The upgrade cd's are more powerful as they allow both an upgrade and a clean install.

The full media only allows a clean install.

Woohoo! That's where I got mine. And I thought I'd have to fiddle around with reinstalling OEM Vista if I ever needed to reinstall.
So you're sure the Win741 download is the Full version and I can install it on a clean hard drive?

Your title and your opening post do not match.

Your logic is as follows:
beware: you pay 1/8th of the price and get a better product than you actually expect

I sincerely do not mean to be rude, but your entire post seems completely pointless.

Kari said:

I had to check this. The screenshot below is from Seven Ultimate Full boxed version, bought this morning. It's in German but everybody knows this screen, it's the one in the beginning of installation where you choose the installation method, custom or upgrade.

My brand new boxed full version of Seven Ultimate asks if I want to upgrade or do a custom install.

Kari

Well, now I really am all screwed up. I am looking at the Paul Thurrott "Windows 7 Secrets" book and on page 38 he clearly says

Full Version: A full version of Wiodws 7 can be used to perform a clean install of Windows 7 only. That is, it cannot be used to upgrade an existing version of Windows to Windows 7.

When I first read it, I didn't believe it, but I thought I was able to confirm on the MS Website what Paul wrote...but now I cannot find it.

And since an upgrade doesn't require prior ownership, a full version is likely going to upgrade as well. I think MS made this secretly complex so that people would just buy the software.

pparks1 said:

Kari,

Actually you are wrong in your assumption. The upgrade cd's are more powerful as they allow both an upgrade and a clean install.

The full media only allows a clean install.

I've done in-place upgrades from Vista OEM to Windows 7 Ultimate as well as DVD-boot upgrade installs from Vista OEM to Windows 7 Ultimate. In all cases, they activated successfully with my full retail TechNet keys.

Kari said:

I fail to understand your point. If you pay for an upgrade installation media and instead get the full version, you get more than you paid for. With full you can always upgrade if you want to.

It's like paying for a pound and getting half a pound free.

Kari

These guys are posting about all the marvelous things the so called 'Upgrade Media' will do. Install from boot for example. Someone with a real upgrade will get a surprise when they attempt to activate if the install is done incorrectly.

Wow, I can't believe the version I downloaded from win741 is the actual full retail version, especially since I went out and bought the 199.99 version from Best Buy. Had I known that their UPGRADE tag, just meant it was the latest version of Windows, I would have used another email address to get another copy of Windows 7 home premium, instead of thinking that the copy online I was buying was an upgrade, and I would have to go through the hassel of reinstalling vista should a hd crash or system failure ever occur.

I guess it pays to look into things. 200 smackaroos down the tube.