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Talking Windows 7 Upgrade Media with Microsoft

Nov. 4, 2009 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

So I had an in-person discussion yesterday with Microsoft about how its Windows 7 Upgrade media does (or does not) work. I'm going to update my Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media article to include this information, but I wanted to communicate it to you as quickly as possible. So here are some data points to consider...

If you run Setup from an existing install of Windows ... Windows 7 will always activate.

If you boot your PC with Windows 7 Upgrade media ... and there is an existing install of Windows on the first partition, Windows 7 will always activate. If the existing install of Windows is on some other partition, Windows 7 should still activate. There are instances in which this won't work--especially when people really muck around with directory structures and so on, but it should activate.

There is one major and important change between Windows Vista and Windows 7 Setup with regards to compliance checking ... In Windows Vista, Setup did the compliance check (to see whether you have a valid prior version of Windows and thus qualify for the Upgrade version) after the phase where you can format the disk. This means you could actually format the disk, thus destroying your previous install, and then fail the compliance check. Microsoft fixed this in Windows 7. That means you can format the disk during Setup: Windows 7 will still activate because the compliance check occurred earlier.

A recovery partition will never qualify you for the Upgrade version. Setup does not understand or parse recovery partitions.

If you clean install Windows 7 with Upgrade media and it does not work for some reason, Microsoft's recommendation is that you call Microsoft Support immediately ... They will get you activated immediately, no questions asked, and the call is free. You're provided with free support calls as part of your purchase.

The Full and Upgrade media for Windows 7 are indeed identical. The only difference is the product key. The code on the discs is the same.

The double-install trick is documented and supported by Microsoft. It's dumb and slow, but Microsoft does support the double-install method (Method #3 in my Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media article) for clean installing Windows 7 with Upgrade media. They do not support the Registry hack (Method #2 in my Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media article) but couldn't think of a reason why it should be avoided otherwise. (I think they just don't like it.) The vibe I got was that if you ever had problems later, you could always call Microsoft support for free and they'd just fix it.

Discuss this Article 31

bdegrande
on Nov 4, 2009
Well done, you have actually shamed Microsoft into making some sense of this situation. I do have a question about virtual machines. What is the proper procedure if you have an XP or Vista virtual machine and are moving to 7?
Ocean
on Nov 4, 2009
I didn't have a good experience on a P4 2.4ghz machine with Win7 -- but based on what Paul said in one of the last two podcasts about the performance being better than XP-- I went back and reexamined the machine. I figured something I'd installed was making it laggy. I took avast off, and put on MS Security Essentials...and that really did give it a little pop. But Paul-- you gotta drop Reader and go with Foxit. Really.
anonymous
on Nov 4, 2009
This post was mentioned on Twitter by thurrott: Talking Windows 7 Upgrade Media with Microsoft: So I had an in-person discussion yesterday with Microsoft about.. http://bit.ly/EvobP
jillbazeley
on Nov 4, 2009
"If the existing install of Windows is on some other partition, Windows 7 should still activate." I had to use method #2 to activate and now I have a dual boot Vista/Win7 machine. Another commentator questioned the legality of the dual boot setup from a licensing point of view, but from my point of view, the Vista install is my windows.old as well as my fallback position if method #2 stops working. Is it possible for it to stop working once activation has succeeded?
Spiggy73
on Nov 4, 2009
Wow, that took awhile to resolve eh? You should create a timeline documenting from the first email until this resolution and post it. I think that would underscore how ridiculous this whole thing has been.
pthurrott
on Nov 4, 2009
jillbazeley : You won't ever run into an issue where Windows is "deactivated" by Microsoft. Spiggy73: I'm pretty sure I started asking for Upgrade media when the RC first hit. I'd have to look.
rr0de74@live.com
on Nov 4, 2009
Trust me. This time it's gonna be different.
de Silentio
on Nov 4, 2009
@Paul: "You won't ever run into an issue where Windows is "deactivated" by Microsoft." I think I had this problem on XP one time. It wasn't technically a "deactivation", but Windows told me that the install wasn't Valid anymore. How this happened is still a mystery to me, as that machine uses the same VLK as all my other machines.
anonymous
on Nov 4, 2009
Paul Thurrott has (maybe) the final word about Windows 7 Upgrade Media after talking with Microsoft....
wildscribe
on Nov 4, 2009
Excellent work Paul! I had a feeling that the activation key is the only difference between the Upgrade and Full versions. Although, I was able to successfully install an Windows 7 Professional upgrade on a brand new 1 TB Western Digital drive and it took the key without problems. Go figure! Trivia Question - Was the XP Home retail upgrade CD the same media as the XP Home retail full CD? (I don't know that's why I am asking.) bdegrande - I successfully installed Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade on a virtual machine running Win XP Pro. I did it on my MacBook Pro with VMWare on Snow Leopard. I know that I probably should first tried installing the Windows 7 upgrade on a new virtual machine, but it's too late now. And I did use VMWare on a Mac, but I am sure that the Windows 7 upgrade will work on any virtual machine on any operating system like Windows as long as it is installed on a previous XP or Vista operating system.
fred001
on Nov 4, 2009
So, Microsoft "approves" of the double-Install method - probably because it is a long tiresome process and it may be unappealing for pirates trying to use the upgrade version without having a qualifying full version So, it is ok with Microsoft if legal customers have to waste a couple of hours if it deters a few pirates. The registry method is too easy and time efficient, and customers don't deserve that convenience if it also helps a few pirates. But then Microsoft says they'll do a phone activation "no questions asked", which means that such process should be as easy for qualified customers as it is for pirates. This all seems to make the DRM (compliance checking) virtually pointless. So, why don't they just ditch the compliance checking? The requirements of the upgrade license won't lose any legal force absent compliance checking. And if compliance checking is so easily overridable with a phone call, why bother with it at all?
anonymous
on Nov 4, 2009
This is a great article on how to upgrade an existing windows system to Windows 7.   http://community
Waethorn
on Nov 4, 2009
"What is the proper procedure if you have an XP or Vista virtual machine and are moving to 7?" How so? You have a virtual machine. If you want to upgrade the virtual machine, you would treat it the same as any physical machine, in that the same license restrictions apply. It'll certainly be faster doing upgrades by mounting the ISO image in your VMM though. You can upgrade inside that VM and you could move the software to a physical machine, if you have the proper rights. If you are upgrading a host operating system only, your VM's can be backed up from the original virtual hard disk and settings files, and you would upgrade the host as normal. You can't install and activate the same OS on a physical and virtual machine at the same time, unless you have Vista or 7 Enterprise (7 Ultimate is supposed to be just the retail version of 7 Enterprise, but nobody seems to be able to answer the question of whether or not it includes the 4 VM rights of Enterprise). Server OS's have VM rights included with most products (except Web Server). Server 08 Standard includes 1 physical + 1 virtual install, Enterprise is 1+4, and Datacenter is 1+unlimited. When using Hyper-V, only the Hyper-V role is supported on the host, so that's why the cost of the VM host license is included for no additional charge when you want to virtualize the OS. "Trust me. This time it's gonna be different." Didn't they say that for the latest wildcat OS from Cupertino, and for the one before that? Well, I guess the previous one didn't completely erase user data - it just locked them out of it in an endless reboot until they formatted, and the company in question blamed it on an incompatible third-party application that was widely in use at the time - so I guess the new one is different, in that it just erases the data for you. That's easy! Format different. "Was the XP Home retail upgrade CD the same media as the XP Home retail full CD?" SETUPP.INI is what differentiated XP versions.
panache1023
on Nov 4, 2009
Waethorn, Does Snow Leopard really just erase your data? Or does it only erase the Guest account and only under certain circumstances? Because from what you are saying, it sounds like Snow Leopard just wipes out all the data for any account? Is that so, or are you just being typical Waethorn? I have Snow Leopard and have not experienced what you are claiming which is that Snow Leopard just wipes out "user data"
Waethorn
on Nov 4, 2009
@panache: I didn't mention Snow Leopard or Apple by name. You're the first (in case a resident troll is keeping track). It apparently erases data from the *main* account (according to reports) after using the Guest account when an upgrade completes.
Waethorn
on Nov 4, 2009
@panache: In any case, the topic is related: OS upgrades. Of course, I don't have to tell you the number of times that Microsoft is compared to Apple, even by Paul.
yoshipod
on Nov 4, 2009
Weathorn is kind of like a Harry Potter character. Its almost like he afraid to say the words Apple, Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, 10.6 He who must not be named...
rr0de74@live.com
on Nov 4, 2009
The Snow Leopard bug will only happen if you had the guest account enabled (disabled by default) in LEOPARD and did an in place upgrade to Snow Leopard. It does not happen with a clean install, or if you NEVER turned on the Guest account in Leopard. It also has not happened for anyone upgrading from Tiger. Also if you turn ON the guest account for the first time ever, in Snow Leopard it wont happen. Even if you had the guest account on in Leopard, upgraded over the top to Snow Leopard....its not guaranteed it will happen. Some people have tried very hard to make it happen but cant. I also have read that the data is not really gone, but made available to be written over. So one of many recovery tools can bring it back with out doing a restore from say Time Machine. Bad bug for sure, but looking at what must be in place for this to possibly happen means that the actual number of happenings is probably small. It is just another example of why doing a clean install for any new OS is the best way to go.
jctierney
on Nov 4, 2009
"I also have read that the data is not really gone, but made available to be written over." This is usually what happens whenever anything is deleted. Unless you wipe the data with ones and zeros over and over again, the data is almost always recoverable. Even after formatting the drive you can still get data off of it.
DRWAM
on Nov 4, 2009
That Snow Leopard bug will be fixed with 10.6.2 update, but I hope that they fix random account log out that has decreased/improved since the last update, although it happened to me once this week. It used to happen several times daily before the 10.6.1 update. MIke G was right, I feel like a Retail Apple Beta tester. Can't wait for my Win 7 laptop. Maybe I'll splurge and spend $600. The wifey will love it. Hopefully she'll let me buy a Bengal kitten for the kids. Any one selling one or have info, PM me. I can afford it with the money I'll save on a Win 7 laptop.
whiplash55
on Nov 4, 2009
Boy communication is a good thing. If this conversation had happened a few months ago think of all the angst that could have been prevented. But better late than never, and good on Paul for keeping up the pressure on behalf of us the consumer. I've done 2 installs one clean and one inplace. The inplace required uninstalling iTunes and NOD32, and then reinstalling them. Although a clean install is preferable I needed to do an in-place on my laptop with its tax data as I'm in the middle of an amended return. And yes all my critical data is fine and ready to go. The first thing I noticed was battery life improved by an hour, which is a lot with a two and a half year old machine and battery. Boot times are about the same, generally the machine feels "snappier and more responsive." Its 40 bucks well spent in my book.
Keleko
on Nov 4, 2009
Just a quick comment on the Win 7 vs Snow Leopard pricing. Paul, you left out the OEM pricing for Windows 7 versions. You probably did on purpose, since it only adds to the confusion, and there's plenty of that already. But, it is yet a third set of prices for Windows to include in the mix.
rr0de74@live.com
on Nov 4, 2009
Score one for Paul. That pricing article is the kind of "to the fact comparison" that is what I like to see. Lite on bias, heavy on fact. I agree with Keleko, you and Leo talk about OEM on the pod cast more than a few times. NewEgg OEM pricing would be good to note. Lets be honest, 95% of people that actually buy a upgrade of 7 are IT or tech geeks, and they will go for OEM when its cheaper.
DRWAM
on Nov 4, 2009
Thanks for the the info Whiplash. Good stuff to look forward to a purchase. Doc
gadfly10
on Nov 4, 2009
Uh, shouldn't these guidelines be included with the product? Is Windows still so unnecessarily complicated that we have to rely on a blog for insight? If then, this... if then that... Ugh, what a frick'n headache.
djRob
on Nov 4, 2009
The moral from this is don't listen to Microsoft lawyers (like the gut who called everybody using upgrade media, thief) , talk to Microsoft engineers.
anonymous
on Nov 4, 2009
Paul Thurrott had direct contact with Microsoft on this issue: If you run Setup from an existing install
LuxZg
on Nov 4, 2009
Point is that Paul kinda made a fuss about nothing. Only part where Paul is indeed rightfully angry is - that MS should have given this same information months ago, when they started pre-orders for upgrade media.
lotsamystuff
on Nov 5, 2009
"Is Windows still so unnecessarily complicated that we have to rely on a blog for insight?" Yes.
DRWAM
on Nov 5, 2009
Paul, two things: 1) You were right. 2) You da man! Thanks Doc
anonymous
on Nov 9, 2009
Get these links off my desktop, will ya?What does Google know about you?Share your e-mail address safely from spambots.Great Invoice design and practices.Perl has a "do" function, but apparently there's...

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