Got questions about the more-mysterious-than-it-should-be Windows 7 upgrade process? Ed Bott has answers. For instance, the difference between full and upgrade versions of Vista.
The key is, um, the product key: When you punch in an upgrade key, setup checks whether or not it’s being installed on a clean system or one that already has Windows. Besides, the earlier workaround for this from Paul Thurrott, there’s the infamous double-install trick leftover from Vista: Install Win7, don’t enter the product key. Then do an upgrade install. Boom.
More answers are over at ZDNet, and likely, even more are coming. Microsoft hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with all of the upgrade details, so Bott’s reverse-engineering the upgrade process to combat their steeliness. [ZDNet]
Sam Wei
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 4:15 PMI bought an update too and i install it from scatch (format existing windows) and do a custom install. Once it ask you to type in product key just leave it blank. It will automatically turn into 30 days trial. Once you got into Windows, just click on activite new key under System property. You should be able to register straight away without having to do an update over windows7 itself
rory
Friday, October 30, 2009 at 10:55 AMif you look at the thumbnail on the main page,
you can see their junk… wtf?