For me, it's a blessing in disguise. I have had very poor luck with Windows upgrades on any kind. The only thing that does work are so-called Service Packs. I've never had one fail. However, my luck with the various builds of Windows 7 beta is that a fresh install is clean and stable, while my few attempts at upgrades end up as failures. I also have had poor luck with data transfer utilities. They never do what I want. What works for me is to use a portable USB or Firewire drive to backup all the data I think I need and go from there.

Bye.

Thats fine, Ive been doing clean installs anyway.

Makes sense. It would be of absolutely no value to MS if they allowed upgrades from previous builds.

Clean install > Update

Studulike, the fact is MS can do what they like, it actually makes sense to clean install RC. Nobody claims that the finished product won't have upgrades.

Studulike said:

??????
Why would you say no value???
It is probably one of the most important issues Microsoft face from a marketing point of view.
For example if M$ want people to upgrade there machines from Vista op then they need to convince that people already running Vista can easily upgrade without having to re-install everything. Especially less competent people who end up having to pay people like PC World etc. large amounts of money to do it then still end up losing data. It is easy to say things like that when you have some reasonable knowledge of PC's. You have to remember nowadays most people who own computers are those who have been told its cool to browse the internet, not got a clew what a computer really is and then end up in PC World being told they need this £1000+ machine to browse the internet because it has pretty lights and will last you longer.(Bull**** in other words).
Anyway getting back to the point....... Therefore one would think if there is a Vista upgrade path then I would think there has to be a Windows Beta path also. Remember there is probably a few thousand people who took the plunge and installed build 7000 without a clew what they were really doing, just based on what there m8 told them was a good idea. You only have to look on this forum to see that there are one or two that post the strangest of questions for someone taking the risk of running beta software. I mean if you don't have a proper understanding of computers don't run Beta software.
I for one when the RC comes out will fresh install anyway purely because my machine probably needs it. I will say one thing though, I have done many upgrade versions of Windows 7 and the have gone very well without issue except very slow and you also should always remove any add-on cards in system then re-add back after machine is installed as that makes system more reliable and less chance of failing part way through.
The thing is at the end of the day it is easy to scare monger before a release is published but the truth be told none of us really know untill it comes out. It is a bit like all these users who jump on the bandwagon and say a leak is a fake before they have even taken the time to check, just to mimic the post above them and to try and look like they know what they are talking about. I mean how many people have got it wrong so far about so many leaks......... 7048.. Fake..(Wrong), ........7057 Fake......(Wrong), ...7068.....Fake....(Wrong), etc. etc.
Someone will release a patch anyway that will make it a one click excercise I would think.

Just wait and see thats all I say.
I would almost (I say almost) put money on the fact that an upgrade will be quite easy. M$ need to keep people happy this time round, they don't want another Vista Nightmare.

Vista? I never mentioned Vista. I'm talking about "upgrades from previous builds" of Windows 7!