Windows 7 to XP and back again

wolfeman42

Distinguished
Apr 15, 2011
18
0
18,510
I find myself in a pretty unique position. I recently built a new computer and loaded Windows 7-64bit on it from a copy of Windows I got through the student program. Come to find out, it's an upgrade only version. Anger aside, the key I have will not work for a clean install. Instead, Microsoft has told me I have to install XP-32bit (which is the version I had on my old computer so I have a copy) and then upgrade to Windows 7 from there.

My question/problem is, other than backing up my files, should I be aware of any other problems with this? Essentially replacing my OS 3 times, should I reformat my hard drive first and then perform the install, or am I ok to just boot from CD and go from there? I also don't know how going from 32-bit to 64 bit is going to work out, anyone have some experience with this?

Many thanks
 

wolfeman42

Distinguished
Apr 15, 2011
18
0
18,510
Well, that is, as I told the tech support when I called, NOT COOL MICROSOFT.

Well, at least I have somewhat of a plan. But with trying to wipeout multiple installations of Windows, am I better off doing a reformat or do I trust it to overwrite in a clean fashion?
 
Do a "custom install". At some point during the procedure, you will be given the option to create/delete partitons and format. Just delete all partitions and recreate them. There is no need to format at that point, because once you choose a partition to install to, the installation process will quick format the partition before installing.
 

wolfeman42

Distinguished
Apr 15, 2011
18
0
18,510
Ok update, so if anyone comes across this in the future you can hopefully work it out. I chose to do a double install of Windows 7 (as suggested in the article linked) If you have applied all service updates, the double install failed for me. So I instead did a clean install followed immediately by the new install. This worked for me and activated just fine.