Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

joel406 · 26 Oct 2009

Ed Bott has always struck me as pretty much...well...stupid.

His articles are always rather shallow and I have never gotten any useful information out of them.

If these people were so smart they would have figured this out long before I did.

So heres the answer.

You can do a clean install with upgrade media and upgrade key.

I have now performed this mind bogoling feat at least 20 times and never recive any of the errors ole Ed is produceing.

Prehaps Ed should let someone that "understands" computers do the work for him.

Tews · 26 Oct 2009

Brink has covered all of this in his updated tutorial -=> Here

muzicman61 · 26 Oct 2009

Well, I don't know if this qualifies as a "Clean install" but I had Windows 7 RC1 (32bit) installed on my PC. It had a second hard drive that was formatted, but blank. I booted from the upgrade ISO (Windows 7 Pro, 64bit) I created using the instructions from another thread. I chose custom installation and selected the blank hard drive as the destination. It installed fine, accepted the product key, and activated with no problems. I used msconfig to remove the boot information for the RC1 version and then formatted that drive. I don't know for sure if this worked, because the upgrade saw the RC1 installation or if it just "works".

Night Hawk · 27 Oct 2009

What I suspect may be half the problem to begin with is the new smaller text seen on the retail sticker for the product key. Being in more of a rush and without closer examination when entering the key one or two characters are simply mistaken for others!

It only takes one being seen as something else to end up seeing... (1st image) while activation was immediate here. (2nd image)

dmillergv · 27 Oct 2009

If you are running a clean install of the available RTM do the following test first.
Use the activation code from the retail update and try to activate.
This worked on 2 of the 3 machines I have.
What I don't understand is why the 3rd machine wouldn't activate when the same RTM DVD was used to load it. The only difference is that third machine is a netbook
BTW, Machine #1 is X86 and #2 is X64. All 3 are laptops.

Nosmo · 27 Oct 2009

I still am not sure I have this 100%, but it seems to me that the installer will look around the computer and if it sees ANY evidence that the computer has had a prior OS installed it somehow flags the install so an 'UPGRADE' key will be accepted and Activation and Validation will take place.

If the computer has a new virgin drive that has never had an OS installed,
the win 7 installation will fail at point of 25 digit key being entered either at the beginning or end of install.

We are NOT talking about the Paul Thurrott workaround. We know that works, but will it only work for a few months and can MS at a later date tell if an install is legal by their definition? All interesting stuff.....

Now some people who swear they have upgrade keys are having these keys behave like full. Go figure....

TheSchaft · 27 Oct 2009

dmillergv said:

If you are running a clean install of the available RTM do the following test first.
Use the activation code from the retail update and try to activate.
This worked on 2 of the 3 machines I have.
What I don't understand is why the 3rd machine wouldn't activate when the same RTM DVD was used to load it. The only difference is that third machine is a netbook
BTW, Machine #1 is X86 and #2 is X64. All 3 are laptops.

The third machine is a netbook, correct? Can it run Ultimate, because that's what the RTM is. That may be the problem.

Barman58 · 27 Oct 2009

Nosmo said:

I still am not sure I have this 100%, but it seems to me that the installer will look around the computer and if it sees ANY evidence that the computer has had a prior OS installed it somehow flags the install so an 'UPGRADE' key will be accepted and Activation and Validation will take place.

If the computer has a new virgin drive that has never had an OS installed,
the win 7 installation will fail at point of 25 digit key being entered either at the beginning or end of install.

We are NOT talking about the Paul Thurrott workaround. We know that works, but will it only work for a few months and can MS at a later date tell if an install is legal by their definition? All interesting stuff.....

Now some people who swear they have upgrade keys are having these keys behave like full. Go figure....

The whole upgrade / Full question as been confused by at least one of the companies handling the special offers including the word UPGRADE on it's advertising materials, when in fact the media they supply is the full install.

I fully believe that Microsoft has left the Double install workaround intentionally as this will prevent a lot of problems in the future when people who legitimately upgrade now come to re-install either onto a new or the same hardware.

The fact that they still make no mention of it is understandable as this will allow users to "upgrade" when they are not entitled to.

The likelihood of Microsoft retrospectively removing the licences is I think also unlikely - the company needs this operating system to be successful and will not risk the bad publicity this would produce.

dmillergv · 27 Oct 2009

TheSchaft said:

dmillergv said:

If you are running a clean install of the available RTM do the following test first.
Use the activation code from the retail update and try to activate.
This worked on 2 of the 3 machines I have.
What I don't understand is why the 3rd machine wouldn't activate when the same RTM DVD was used to load it. The only difference is that third machine is a netbook
BTW, Machine #1 is X86 and #2 is X64. All 3 are laptops.

The third machine is a netbook, correct? Can it run Ultimate, because that's what the RTM is. That may be the problem.

The RTM was modified to install Home Premium. It was used on 2 machines.
The first activated and the second wouldn't. Tried 3 times on the second machine.

Xyphus · 29 Oct 2009

I just installed a clean install from my Windows 7 upgrade DVD last night.

I just did a custom install and formatted the partition and installed as normal. When it asks you to enter your serial number, just skip by, and un-check the box to activate after the install.

Once booted into the OS, just create an empty folder on the root of your C:\ drive called "Windows.old" and then proceed to activate the OS. It will activate fine and you'll be good to go without having to install and activate your previous OS first.

This saved me quite a bit of time and hassle of having to first install Vista and then having to do an upgrade from there.

Nothing like a nice fresh 'clean' install of a new OS. :)