Make bootable iso from student d/l

Fly Guy · 22 Oct 2009

Hi. I was able to successfully create an iso image and make a DVD boot disc. I downloaded the Windows 7 installer to an XP Pro 32 bit partition. In anticipation of this day, I had made two partitions on my drive for dual booting. When unpacking the files, I also got the warning but continued anyway with creating the iso image. Booting to the new DVD disc, I selected custom install and chose the other partition. There was no windows install on that other partition. Entering my windows key went without a hitch.

Skylinefranc · 22 Oct 2009

Fly Guy said:

Hi. I was able to successfully create an iso image and make a DVD boot disc. I downloaded the Windows 7 installer to an XP Pro 32 bit partition. In anticipation of this day, I had made two partitions on my drive for dual booting. When unpacking the files, I also got the warning but continued anyway with creating the iso image. Booting to the new DVD disc, I selected custom install and chose the other partition. There was no windows install on that other partition. Entering my windows key went without a hitch.

Did you get your key from DigitalRiver or from MS directly? I think some people are saying that if you do a format and you purchased from DigitalRiver then your Key will not work since its not an upgrade.

poin2 · 22 Oct 2009

Whatever you do, plan to have a prior activated OS on your system before starting the upgrade process.

I'd assume that means you change your hardware first. If it causes a fit with your current OS, that may mean you contact MS to take care of activation there, first.

When the new hardware is in and your prior OS is hunky dory, run the upgrade. You should be able to choose to format and fresh install during the process.

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And on a side note, I'll comment that as great as MS has gotten Windows 7 itself together, getting it out into consumers' hands in a clear, understandable manner is quite a mess. The way they have upgrade and full discs that can do either upgrade or fresh installs, etc., seems to cause a lot of universal confusion. Then there's confusion about if you can upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional, etc. And now there are these relatively untested upgrade things that come as .exe files where you can't easily burn a bootable disc.... Anyway, going to be a shame if they get the OS right, but they have livid customers who bought the full version thinking that was the only way to clean install, etc.

Skylinefranc · 22 Oct 2009

poin2 said:

When the new hardware is in and your prior OS is hunky dory, run the upgrade. You should be able to choose to format and fresh install during the process.

Ok, how sure are you about this part? If so I would love that to be possible, I really do want to have a fresh install but when I bought this DL i didnt know it was upgrade only! damn you MS, anyway, if not I guess I'll just upgrade and start trying to clean up my unused files myself, Thanks for the tip.

patdman · 22 Oct 2009

I'm wondering what happens if your system disk dies, and you need to reinstall everything from scratch (happened to me a few months back)
Do you need to install XP/Vista, then go with the 'upgrade'?
Sounds like a massive PITA, at least it was only $30, I think I may just end up buying the real thing.

Skylinefranc · 22 Oct 2009

patdman said:

I'm wondering what happens if your system disk dies, and you need to reinstall everything from scratch (happened to me a few months back)
Do you need to install XP/Vista, then go with the 'upgrade'?
Sounds like a massive PITA, at least it was only $30, I think I may just end up buying the real thing.

yeah, thats what I was wondering as well, I'm guessing I'll just suck it up and go buy an OEM version of ultimate in a few paychecks so I can stop worrying about formatting my HDD.

Fly Guy · 22 Oct 2009

Skylinefranc said:

Did you get your key from DigitalRiver or from MS directly? I think some people are saying that if you do a format and you purchased from DigitalRiver then your Key will not work since its not an upgrade.

Yes. I am also a student that downloaded from Digital River.

zrtom · 22 Oct 2009

patdman said:

I'm wondering what happens if your system disk dies, and you need to reinstall everything from scratch (happened to me a few months back)
Do you need to install XP/Vista, then go with the 'upgrade'?
Sounds like a massive PITA, at least it was only $30, I think I may just end up buying the real thing.

Yup. That's what MS told me. Posted here:
STILL confused about "Upgrade" installation process.

Says upgrade clean installs are possible, but you have to reinstall XP/Vista first.
Tom

spiffman · 22 Oct 2009

I can confirm that this method works with the digitalriver download when upgrading from windows xp 32 to windows 7 64.

Just to be clear on a few points:

1. I had a legitimate copy of Windows XP installed;
2. I purchased the student upgrade version of Windows 7 and downloaded it from DigitalRiver;
3. Extracting gave me the "We are unable to create ..." error. The folder that it expanded to contained 874 files in 199 folders with a size of 3,239,836,668.
4. I created the iso using the method in this thread (ignoring the fact I got the error message);
5. Burned ISO with imgburn;
6. Rebooted and installed giving it my upgrade cd.

Now I'm in Windows 7 - thanks so much to the posters in this thread!

kk405 · 22 Oct 2009

I have downloaded the 64-bit version and am trying to install it in a new drive and it is stunning to me how difficult this process is and how much trouble all of us are having...wasn't this supposed to be a piece of cake upgrade?

I am burning the image and will post the results soon...hopefully form Windows 7 :) in about an hour or so