Is there a windows 7 trial?

well there is a trial in theory. The way it will work though if you install windows and when it asked for a Activation Key... just skip the step and say will activate later. this will give you a certain time period (30 days i think) to activate windows. When you have your product key from the full copy you obtain later. Send me a PM and I'll gladly explain how to activate windows. After the 30 day period your copy of windows will become genuine and you will want to re-install windows.

Thank you, that is exactly what I needed to know.

As long as you buy your key in 30 days you can then activate it. There is really no trial version of Windows just as said you have 30 days to activate it. However there is no need at all to re-install Windows in order to activate it and have a genuine copy you just have to enter your key and activate.

buy a win8 upgrade and use the key you get from that upgrade to activate a windows 7 pro (upgrade) installation.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6065/windows-8-upgrade-wi...

"On that note, for those of you still on Windows XP, the fact that Microsoft is offering Windows 8 Pro as opposed to Windows 8 (consumer) should be of particular interest. Windows 8 Pro comes with downgrade rights, which allow the owner to legally install older versions of Windows. So for those of you needing to upgrade from XP but still wanting to hang back with Windows 7, this is a de-facto $40 Windows 7 Professional upgrade too."

Wait, what?

scratch that advice... it was based on info from anandtech which turned out to be incorrect.

The downgrade rights from windows 8 --> Windows 7 only apply to brand new computers that come preinstalled with windows 8.

I know because I tried following my own advice based off that andadtech article... and it didn't work when trying to activate a windows vista --> win 7 upgrade.

so now I'm out 40 bucks and I have a windows 8 license that I don't need... oh well.

You could always give me the windows 8 license, hahaha