Upgrading the Upgrade after Activation question

[tannim]

Once I install the upgrade as an upgrade to a previous version of windows. Can I clean install that upgrade, since the upgrade will have been activated in the past?

 

[Termana]

Bit hard to follow that sentence but if I understand what your asking, you want to upgrade with an upgrade key, but are considering doing a clean install with your upgrade key in the future. I believe Retail and Upgrade keys are able to be used 3 times and then you have to call up Microsoft to activate with the key (phone activation).

 

[tannim]

Not exactly what I am asking about.
First, you successfully upgrade an installation and activate the upgrade key.

After that, can you clean install with that upgrade disk and activate that install?
Such as if you skip putting in the CD key when you install it, it should ask if you want to activate when you start windows. Can you then put in the upgrade key and activate without additional steps?

Yes, it's confusing to say let alone think up

 

[harpua]

I believe that if there is any "qualifying" OS to upgrade from, already installed and activated on the drive on which you want to clean install your upgrade version, you can clean install.

Moreover, it is not a requirement to do an "upgrade install" before doing the above "clean install" with an upgrade disk.

But to answer your question as phrased (if I understood it correctly), yes, once one has W7 installed and activated, I believe it (the activated W7 installation) would then be considered a qualifying OS from which one is allow to upgrade, by doing either an upgrade install or a clean install. It has to work this way to allow you to reinstall or clean install your OS if you should ever want or need to.

However, I believe there is a limit as to how many times you can activate online, using the same key. I'm not sure about the exact rules or how many times one can activate online with the same retail upgrade key before one would be require to activate over the phone.

I think (hope) there might also be a time period that perhaps would reset the activation count back to zero or 1, after say six months or so have passed without any reactivations with a particular key.

I hope someone will correct me if I have any of this wrong.

 

[Jonmor68]

While I believe what harpua says is correct, (nobody seems to know for sure) if that fails, as I understand it you can do a clean install and when prompted insert your XP/Vista disk and enter your XP/Vista product key for verification of eligabilty.

 

[Nosmo]

The key to the whole 'Upgrade' business is that Win 7 setup must be run from within an activated OS.

So a re install from a Win 7 system would just require the disc to be inserted and then select 'Custom Install'. Then format and partition.

Now if you have a drive failure and wish to re install Win 7 on a blank drive, things get more complicated.

First you must install the OS you upgraded from originally. Then you must activate it by phone. This activation will NOT work automatically as the key has already been used.

When activated, Win 7 can be re installed from within and activated with its own key.

The difference this time around over Vista was that Vista did NOT have to be activated for MS to validate the legality of the license. This time around MS does require it to be activated so we honest folk have to go through extra hoops.

 

[tannim]

Good to see them encouraging piracy by making people who pay for it jump through the hoops. "Look at me! Look at me! I paid for this!" While the pirate simply uses an activation crack and goes on their way. Yes, illegal, but who cares? How many people have actually read a EULA? I tried to a few times, made no sense to me.

My question assumes the drive is blank(you wiped the disk for example) in the same computer as windows 7 upgrade had been used to upgrade another windows and activated successfully in the past. If it clean installs using the windows 7 upgrade disk, entering no liscense at time of installation. Can it then be activated because it had already been activated in the past? No different computer or hardware.

With a retail purchase I believe you were allowed to install it as many times as you like on one computer. Also, the question may have been answered, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what i meant, though I doubt it's too clear.

 

[tw33k]

Good to see them encouraging piracy by making people who pay for it jump through the hoops. "Look at me! Look at me! I paid for this!" While the pirate simply uses an activation crack and goes on their way. Yes, illegal, but who cares? How many people have actually read a EULA? I tried to a few times, made no sense to me.

My question assumes the drive is blank(you wiped the disk for example) in the same computer as windows 7 upgrade had been used to upgrade another windows and activated successfully in the past. If it clean installs using the windows 7 upgrade disk, entering no liscense at time of installation. Can it then be activated because it had already been activated in the past? No different computer or hardware.

With a retail purchase I believe you were allowed to install it as many times as you like on one computer. Also, the question may have been answered, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what i meant, though I doubt it's too clear.

the answer is yes. if you do an upgrade of 7 over xp and activate it, you can then run a clean install of seven and it will activate again

 

[zigzag3143]

Good to see them encouraging piracy by making people who pay for it jump through the hoops. "Look at me! Look at me! I paid for this!" While the pirate simply uses an activation crack and goes on their way. Yes, illegal, but who cares? How many people have actually read a EULA? I tried to a few times, made no sense to me.
they made little sense to me as well but I think we all know what the intent is

My question assumes the drive is blank(you wiped the disk for example) in the same computer as windows 7 upgrade had been used to upgrade another windows and activated successfully in the past. If it clean installs using the windows 7 upgrade disk, entering no liscense at time of installation. Can it then be activated because it had already been activated in the past? No different computer or hardware.

When you activate your OS (not your hardware) it generates a Globally Unique ID. If you dont change the hardware at all it will stay the same. MS gives you abt 5 re-activations (at least in vista they did) before you will have to call them with your Key and dvd to get a manual key..

Realize that any difference (HD, ram, cpu, bios upgrade, etc will then generate a different GUID and count towards the ~5 re-activations over the internet.

With a retail purchase I believe you were allowed to install it as many times as you like on one computer. Also, the question may have been answered, I'm just trying to clarify exactly what i meant, though I doubt it's too clear.

See above. You can install as many times as you want on one computer but after the magic number you will start having to call them and explain.

Hope this helps

ken

 

[Tews]

With a retail purchase I believe you were allowed to install it as many times as you like on one computer.

This is one of the biggest fallacies about a retail license EULA Ive seen. MS will blacklist a key if they see it being used too many times ... remember the infamous FCKGW ***** key when xp first came out ??? If they think you are abusing a key, you will be forced to call in to activate your copy of w7...

 

[Nosmo]

Once Win 7 has been activated, the key from the previous activated OS is 'flagged' by MS servers and if an attempt to use it again, will fail automatic activation and we will call MS and explain that we need to install XP and activated before we can re install Win 7. If all the licenses and keys match, a phone activation will go smoothly ( that's presuming no major hardware has been changed.)

Personally I think this as all unexceptionable and there must be an easier way to validate the honest users that genuinely have a legal copy of XP, and want to purchase update media license

I will probably cancel my order for 3 update media licenses.