Upgrade win7starter>home premium on new netbook w/msdn?

[pcgeek]

Im giving a new netbook as a gift but it comes with windows 7 starter. Is there a reason for not upgrading to Home Premium due to ram, etc? Ive heard starter is recommended for net-books but its pretty much stripped isn't it?

Also, Is there a way of doing the upgrade through the Windows anytime upgrade but using a MSDN retail home premium key? I ask this because it sounds easier to do that way since it doesn't have a DVD drive.

 

[Jonathan_King]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/14422-compare-windows-7-editions.html

 

[logicearth]

The only reason Windows 7 Starter is on netbooks is to lower the initial cost of buy it.
There is no reason the full version of Home Premium or even Ultimate cannot run on it.

 

[poin2]

I believe starter lacks things like the Aero interface.

If you start turning that on on a netbook you can certainly slow it down, but there's otherwise no reason it can't run Home Premium in general. It sounds like a lot of people are frustrated by not being able to change wallpaper in starter in particular.

If you have a legitimate home premium key, I'd simply put the iso on a USB drive and install it that way. If you do anything with the Anytime Upgrade, I believe you're getting a key (and install media) as well -- which is pointless if you already have a key and access to the correct media.

 

[Frostmourne]

Netbooks are pointless, but Premium will work - most likely slooowly with too many apps open.

 

[pcgeek]

If you have a legitimate home premium key, I'd simply put the iso on a USB drive and install it that way. If you do anything with the Anytime Upgrade, I believe you're getting a key (and install media) as well -- which is pointless if you already have a key and access to the correct media.

Well it Seems like in vista's anytime upgrade, you could enter your key before you downloaded so you got the right version to install... Wonder if 7 is the same way? Not sure how to do the whole boot from USB thing. Would it take forever to upgrade either way? Ive heard 6 hrs or is that just if upgrading from Vista?.

 

[gregrocker]

People have reported that they successfully inserted Upgrade or Full Version key into anytime upgrade.

Jonathan?

 

[Jonathan_King]

People have reported that they successfully inserted Upgrade or Full Version key into anytime upgrade.

Jonathan?

Yes, certainly. I bought Pro for $29.99 directly from Microsoft, and the key they gave me worked in Anytime. That's not to guarantee all upgrade/full keys work in Anytime, but at least mine did.

 

[drewpul]

Can you revert back to starter after you upgrade?

 

[gregrocker]

Make a System Image of Starter in case you want to roll back; just reimage the HD in 20 minutes.

Other than that you'd have to clean reinstall, as far as I know.

 

[CassieFWinTeam]

I believe a clean install is what you would need to do to go back to Starter. However, I am not sure why you would want to go back. Using the Anytime Upgrade option from Windows will just give you access to more features while maintaining the same quality system that you currently have with Starter (including the ability to change your desktop background...which is a big plus for me )!

Cheers,
Cassandra
Microsoft Windows Outreach

 

[Zepher]

I was running Ultimate on my Dell Mini 9 until 3 days ago.
I do have 2GB of Ram and a fast SSD in it though, but Win 7 Home Premium runs great on my friends Aspire One with 1GB and a 160gb hard disk.
Aero runs great and I noticed no slow downs with it on or off.

I put OSX on my Dell 3 days ago and it runs much better than Win 7 on this netbook, but never using a Mac before made it awkward to figure out some settings, like the huge dock taking up the bottom of the screen.
OSX also boots much faster than Win 7 Starter, 35 seconds from the time you hit the power button on OSX and 55 seconds with Win 7 Starter, both fresh installs with no apps loaded, except OSX uses a boot loader so it would be a couple of seconds faster otherwise. 20 seconds is no big deal really though.

 

[hkancyr]

My netbook came with starter and it seemed to work OK, but there are some restrictions. I upgraded to Home Premium after about 20 minutes. The upgrade takes only minutes but costs about $80. I have a N480 cpu and 2 Gigs of ram and 7 runs fine.
Pointless? Perhaps, if it is your only computer. I have a couple other powerful computers that do anything fast. Cruising the internet or reading ebooks, a place to clean off your sd cards on the road, they can't be beat. If you can't figure out how to do things without several apps open at once it can be painfully slow. Get the cpu usage gadget and you will soon see what you can do without pegging it at 100 percent.