I have been seeing alot about upgrade vs retail

[blankojames]

So really what is the difference in the two other then price? I mean if you can do a clean install with the upgrade disk isnt that basically what the retail does?

btw I tried upgrading from vista and it worked good once booted but took forever to boot and sometimes locked up and at times ate alot of ram. So i popped the win7 upgrade disk in and did clean install now im zooming.

So if i can get the full OS from an upgrade and doing a clean install why would anyone buy Full retail?

 

[Jonathan_King]

It's a licensing thing. The only reason people would buy Full Retail is honesty. It is illegal to use the Upgrade media unless you have an existing OS. I know, it makes no sense on Microsoft's part, but they develop the software, they get to choose the license terms. It is up to us to follow them.

 

[blankojames]

Since 99.9% of the people who will install windows 7 already have xp/vista why would anyone buy full retail? What benefit would it bring?

 

[Jonathan_King]

The only people who need to buy Full retail are those who build their own systems, but don't fit MS's criteria for getting the OEM license.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Since 99.9% of the people who will install windows 7 already have xp/vista why would anyone buy full retail? What benefit would it bring?

It brings the benefit of a much simpler process should you need to reinstall. There are several ways around this, however, such as the clean install with an upgrade disc trick, or a creating an image of your system volume once you get Windows 7 installed.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Plus not everyone knows it is possible to do a clean install with upgrade media.