Laptop windows 7 upgrade advice

[craney5]

Evening all

I have been considering upgrading my laptop to windows 7 32 bit, currently its running vista 32 bit. The HD according to a health app is said to be dieing and i was thinking of getting a new one and thought it would be an idea to get rid of sloppy vista.

I have a dell laptop and according to the upgrade advisor i shouldn't have any issues upgrading the only thing putting me off is the £80 oem price, a new hd wont cost much at all so thats not a problem

Just wanted your opinion if it would be worth it or not, i do have windows 7 64 bit installed on my desktop and i love it, i have the 32 bit disk as well so i was wondering if i do go ahead and decide to upgrade is there a way of just purchasing a license as i already have a home premium disk? just thinking if it is possible to just buy a license and i install with the 32 bit home premium disk i already have will that mean i have to buy a home premium license rather than an oem?

Hope you can help, sorry for the boring read

 

[Maguscreed]

The price is the same whether you get the disc and all, or just the key from microsoft. They automatically assume you are downloading the disc image with your purchase.

I suggest just getting a family premium pack for 150, if you can afford it. That gives you 3 keys, and premium instead of starter.
Starter has some limitations to it, I'm not personally fond of.

 

[craney5]

Thanks for that mate, im not looking for the windows starter tho i believe the oem versions are the same as the home premiums but are tied to the 1 machine you install it to. I dont really have the money to fork out for the idea you suggested but thanks very much for the suggestion tho really appreciate it.

I was just thinking if i install the 32 bit home premium version from the disk i used to install on my main desktop machine i could call microsoft a buy a license that way but i was not sure if i "could buy" an oem license from them directly. The other thing i was not to sure on was if indeed i install like i stated above would an "oem key" work with a home premium install? Are they effectivly the same thing? maybe apart from oem being tied to one machine for good where as you could re-install a full home premium key as many times as you like, only being active on 1 machine at a time of course

 

[Mark Phelps]

If you install it without supplying a product key, it will give you 30 days to activate it.

During that period, you would have the option of going online and purchasing a new key from MS.

But, I believe they will charge you the full retail price (the exact amount depends on where you live), and not give you the reduced OEM price. That's only because with Win7, they clamped down on what they consider to be OEMs.

 

[gregrocker]

The best deal in the US right now is Home Premium Upgrade Family 3-pack for $129 at NewEgg, Amazon and others. You own three keys for life for about the price of one.

I would look for a deal similar to that now in the UK, then insert the key into your HP install at Computer>Properties. You can extend activation timeout for 120 days if you need more time to shop: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/875-activation-trial-period-extend-up-120-days.html

You'll need to have a qualifying XP or Vista retail copy, or which came preinstalled on the machine. If you didn't install with the qualifying OS already on the machine, you'll have to do one of the workarounds here to get it to accept Product Key: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/31402-clean-install-upgrade-windows-7-version.html

Tips for getting a purrfect install - just use the ones which apply: http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/125874-re-install-windows-7-a.html#post1086729