Pre-installed OS...

[abnstubby]

My laptop came with Vista 64-bit installed. The company (Toshiba) offered a "Free Upgrade to Win 7".

Once I get the Upgrade DVD, can I and how will I do a clean install of Windows 7 using that Upgrade DVD?

I have seen numerous webpages talking about clean (custom) installations.

If I have my laptop booted up and running (current copy of Vista) and I insert the Upgrade DVD, choose Custom Install, how is my hard drive wiped and Win 7 installed (clean)? How will the verification be done that I have (had!) a certified, activated copy of Vista installed?

I'm not sure I follow the process of the clean install...or how my current/activated copy of Vista is verified.

 

[Jonmor68]

Windows will detect and remove the old OS and put it in a Windows old folder. Toshiba will have a bulk licence and Windows will be able to detect the Toshiba hardware signature from the bios.

 

[Bolbi]

Just to clarify what Jonmor68 said, the folder that all your Vista data is dumped into during the clean install is actually called "Windows.old". Then Win7 is installed in the free space on your HDD. Win7 will use its own folder structure, registry, etc. The Windows.old folder will be treated like any normal folder would be; not sure because I've never actually gone through the process, but it will probably be placed in the root of your system drive, or maybe in My Documents. The Win7 upgrade verifies that you own Vista by looking in the Vista registry before it begins to install to verify your version, and make sure that it is activated. BTW, the Win7 upgrade invalidates your Vista license.

 

[The_Prophecy]

Just to confirm what Bolbi said above, the upgrade process will put the Windows.old folder it creates in the root of the boot drive (C. If you ever want to revert back to Vista for any reason, make sure you do not delete this folder, or you will be left with a doorstop until you reinstall an operating system.

 

[abnstubby]

Thanks alot for the info!

Um....will I need to or should I mess with any of the partitions during the install? Or is it better to just let the installation program do its thing?

I've only had this computer for a little over a month...I haven't done anything drastic to it, just installed software.

I have great backups done to an external drive of all my important files. I also used driverbackup 2.0 to do a backup of all my drivers.

I found a pretty good program to do backups for Firefox and Thunderbird as well.

I'm not looking to do anything fancy...just a clean copy install of Win7.

Hey, thanks again very much for taking the time to write back. I DO appreciate it!

Jim

 

[Jonmor68]

"Um....will I need to or should I mess with any of the partitions during the install?"
While not necessary, if the drive is 500GB or more I would be inclined to create 2 partions one of about 250GB for the boot partition, leaving the rest for data.
If you need to reinstall at some later time and have a large drive to backup it's going to take a long time.

 

[sminlal]

Just to confirm what Bolbi said above, the upgrade process will put the Windows.old folder it creates in the root of the boot drive (C. If you ever want to revert back to Vista for any reason, make sure you do not delete this folder, or you will be left with a doorstop until you reinstall an operating system.

To the best of my knowledge there is no way to "downgrade" from Win7 to Vista, even if you leave that folder on the disk. If you ever want to revert back to Vista, I think reinstalling from the Vista disk will be the only option (aside from installing Win7 in a separate partition).

 

[The_Prophecy]

To the best of my knowledge there is no way to "downgrade" from Win7 to Vista, even if you leave that folder on the disk. If you ever want to revert back to Vista, I think reinstalling from the Vista disk will be the only option (aside from installing Win7 in a separate partition).

*Fires up VMware to test...*

 

[sminlal]

*Fires up VMware to test...*

Let us know how it goes!

 

[The_Prophecy]

Let us know how it goes!

Hmm.... seems you are correct. 7 cannot be removed after an upgrade from Vista. The drive must be wiped out if the users intention is to go back to Vista.

 

[sminlal]

Hmm.... seems you are correct. 7 cannot be removed after an upgrade from Vista. The drive must be wiped out if the users intention is to go back to Vista.

I suspected as much... Thanks for taking the time to test it!

 

[abnstubby]

One last question... and this is a "for instance" type question.

I do a clean install, the Win7 installation dumps my old files in the Windows.old folder and uses the information contained there to validate my Vista license. (tracking so far?)

All goes well and between my own backups and the Windows.old folder, I have all my files and information, the computer runs great and I feel I don't need the Windows.old folder any longer. (for any other reason than "just in case" I needed to reinstall Win7).

But "Bolbi" mentioned that the Win7 installation invalidates my Vista license.

Sooooo, does that mean that keeping the Windows.old folder once I'm done with it would do me no good should I ever need to re-install Win7? It sounds like I could not do another Win7 installation since my Vista license would be invalid.

And if I ever DO need to re-install Win7, how would I do that with just an upgrade DVD?

Sounds like Microsoft is "steering" me towards buying a "Full" DVD.

Thanks again!


Jim

 

[sminlal]

I do a clean install, the Win7 installation dumps my old files in the Windows.old folder and uses the information contained there to validate my Vista license. (tracking so far?)

The problem is that I've never seen an actual report from someone whose done an upgrade, so I (and nobody else I know of) really knows exactly how the upgrade validates the previous version. It might check the old installation on disk, it might prompt for the old license key, or .... who knows?

Until someone actually runs an upgrade and reports exactly how it worked, we're all just speculating...

 

[abnstubby]

Makes sense...thanks again!