This is ridiculous - there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer.
Microsoft are going to get another kicking if people go out and buy a full retail and then discover they had no need to.
And what is the difference between the 'upgrade' and an OEM then?
Big difference...
With an OEM copy, that licence is tied to ONE COMPUTER. This means, for instance, that if you uninstall the OEM licence from one machine and then try to install and activate it on another it won't.
To summarize:
Upgrade editions can be installed as many times as you want and re-activated as long as it is only activated to one machine at a time
OEM editions can only be used on the computer that was activated on them first...any subsequent activations must be used on the same machine that it was activated on prior
Maybe someone has brought this up already, but it seems plausible to me Microsoft would forego the check for a prior OS for a certain period of time, like the initial rush after the release.
I would think they could throw a switch and restore the original requirement for the upgrade DVD to have a prior OS whenever they like. But I certainly do not know for sure.
Paul Thurrot has put up this workaround for clean installing Win7 to a new HDD:
http://community.winsupersite.com/bl...he-answer.aspx
I have a WD Caviar Black drive I installed a few weeks ago. I have an install of RTM Home Premium on it (modded iso). The disk has never had an activated version of Windows on it. I just got my upgrade disks from Newegg off my front porch. I put the code in and it activated. I'm going to reinstall anyway, but that was pretty easy contrary to what some said.
Sadly, I can confirm what others are saying
I removed my HD, put in a bigger new one and re-installed.
product key would not be accepted.
Looks like there does has to be some trace of an existing op
Have quickly installed Vista (which is what I'm typing this from) and then will try a clean install and hope that works fine.
one thing I have noticed, I have a fairly hi spec i7 6GB RAM system, with the pre-release versions of Windows 7, it took under 30 mins to completely install.
With both my original clean install onto my old hard drive, and my failed install on my new hard drive, it took about 40 - 50 mins to complete the final something along the lines of "completing installation" stage, and gave the appearence that it was stuck (but I waited and sure enough, eventually it worked).
That is annoying enough when the product key is accepted, but to spend over an hour to get to the point where it tells you the key is invalid, is simply wrong in my opinion.
Will get back in just over an hour presuming the custom clean install works fine over me formatting this from within the setup to confirm all is working
Sadly, I can confirm what others are saying
I removed my HD, put in a bigger new one and re-installed.
product key would not be accepted.
Looks like there does has to be some trace of an existing op
Have quickly installed Vista (which is what I'm typing this from) and then will try a clean install and hope that works fine.
one thing I have noticed, I have a fairly hi spec i7 6GB RAM system, with the pre-release versions of Windows 7, it took under 30 mins to completely install.
With both my original clean install onto my old hard drive, and my failed install on my new hard drive, it took about 40 - 50 mins to complete the final something along the lines of "completing installation" stage, and gave the appearence that it was stuck (but I waited and sure enough, eventually it worked).
That is annoying enough when the product key is accepted, but to spend over an hour to get to the point where it tells you the key is invalid, is simply wrong in my opinion.
Will get back in just over an hour presuming the custom clean install works fine over me formatting this from within the setup to confirm all is working
Paul Thurrot posted a workaround for this on WinSupersite this morning. It is given 3 posts above.
Thanks. Have just read it.Sadly, I can confirm what others are saying
I removed my HD, put in a bigger new one and re-installed.
product key would not be accepted.
Looks like there does has to be some trace of an existing op
Have quickly installed Vista (which is what I'm typing this from) and then will try a clean install and hope that works fine.
one thing I have noticed, I have a fairly hi spec i7 6GB RAM system, with the pre-release versions of Windows 7, it took under 30 mins to completely install.
With both my original clean install onto my old hard drive, and my failed install on my new hard drive, it took about 40 - 50 mins to complete the final something along the lines of "completing installation" stage, and gave the appearence that it was stuck (but I waited and sure enough, eventually it worked).
That is annoying enough when the product key is accepted, but to spend over an hour to get to the point where it tells you the key is invalid, is simply wrong in my opinion.
Will get back in just over an hour presuming the custom clean install works fine over me formatting this from within the setup to confirm all is working
Paul Thurrot posted a workaround for this on WinSupersite this morning. It is given 3 posts above.
Pity I didn't read it 3 hrs ago lol
Just reinstalled windows 7, clean install and formatted the Vista partition from within the setup.
All worked 100% fine.
The last piece of the puzzle for me is re install.
Say in 6 months I have a hard drive failure. My Win7 gets wiped out and with it my upgrade path. And there is no other operating system for a flag to be set.
Well then I have to boot my upgrade Media because that is all I have.
If I enter my product key, It might activate if MS has somehow changed my 'key' from upgrade to 'full', Wishfull thinking but would be a very slick way of
validating.
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