windows 7 question

gooner99

Hi. I had a laptop with vista and then bought win7 pro upgrade from software4students and did a fresh install using the 32 bit version. That was 2 years ago and the laptop is no more. I am building a new pc for my son and planned to use the upgrade on this new pc. The new pc will have 8 gig of ram so 64bit is a must. I tried to download the 64 bit from their links, but got an error that the links had expired in Jan of this year. Should I contact them or can I just use any win7 64 bit dvd to install?

I still have the product key.

Thanks.

5uspect

Any disk will do as long as the product key is valid - an OEM key cannot usually be transferred.

gooner99

5uspect wrote: »

Any disk will do as long as the product key is valid - an OEM key cannot usually be transferred.

Cheers. I'd imagine since I didn't buy it with the laptop then it's not OEM?

Do I need a Pro disk?

GarIT

You can only use a pro licence on a pro install. You can only use an upgrade licence on a pc that has been upgraded from an older install which had a valid licence.

gooner99

GarIT wrote: »

You can only use a pro licence on a pro install. You can only use an upgrade licence on a pc that has been upgraded from an older install which had a valid licence.

Sounds like it wont work then so, as this is a totally new pc. :eek:

I guess I'll need to get a new 64bit copy. any idea where to get a 64 bit copy at a really good price?

GarIT

gooner99 wrote: »

Sounds like it wont work then so, as this is a totally new pc. :eek:

I guess I'll need to get a new 64bit copy. any idea where to get a 64 bit copy at a really good price?

You said you bought an upgrade licence but then you said you did a fresh install, is it a regular licence or upgrade? There's no such thing as a 64 bit licence its all the same as 32bit.

gooner99

GarIT wrote: »

You said you bought an upgrade licence but then you said you did a fresh install, is it a regular licence or upgrade? There's no such thing as a 64 bit licence its all the same as 32bit.

Yes bought an upgrade (says upgrade on the email I got) which came with links to 32 + 64 bit downloads. If I remember rightly I backup up my files and did a full install.

5uspect

Sorry should have said any Win7 Pro disk. If you bought a Win7 retail copy it would have come with 32bit and 64bit disks.
Here's an ISO for Win7 Pro x64.
This should let you try out your product key at least.

You could always stick the Tech Preview of Windows 10 on it. It's just 8.2 really but it's pretty stable and freely available for now.

GarIT

You shouldn't have been able to do a full install with an upgrade, so just try it I guess.

Fysh

GarIT wrote: »

You shouldn't have been able to do a full install with an upgrade, so just try it I guess.

Not entirely true, you can do a clean install on an upgrade key - basically, you do a clean install with upgrade media and don't activate. Then you launch an in-place upgrade from the new install, let it run through again (thereby setting all the registry keys etc that confirm this is an upgrade install) and activate at the end.

As I recall when MS launched Win7 someone figured this out and asked reps about it - the answer was something along the lines of "we know some people prefer to have a clean install, and we didn't want to force people who had bought a valid upgrade licence to have an inferior experience. However, it's only a valid installation if you meet the terms of the upgrade licence ie you had a licence for a previous version of windows on the target system to which you apply the upgrade".

cerastes

Similar question regarding windows 7 but maybe other possibilities.

I have a second laptop, it had XP installed on it, it worked fine but because XP wasn't going to be supported I tried a few versions of open source OS's.
Currently it has a few options of ubuntu to open it up with, but the tedium of trying to get printers connected was too much hassle, so I'm going to revert back to windows.

I plan to reinstall my old version of XP, I think it may have been 32 bit?
I want to install a new version of windows that will be supported for a while.
I never like the look of Win8 and the laptop has no features that I think Win8 might support, I was concerned about going further than this in the event the age of the laptop gave problems with the OS. I hadnt heard of Win 9 being available and now reading in the last few minutes have come across Win10 being available??

What are my options? I was planning to upgrade to Win 7 if possible.
In summary, I'm looking to change the OS to a MS version, as cheaply but officially as possible to make it useable, to have as a backup and to get some use out of it as it was/is a good laptop.
There is also another netbook that was running XP too owned by my wife, I'd like to do the same upgrade for it and if possible use the same OS upgrade software, how many household items can a new upgrade be used on? (ie in this case possibly 2?) Although I may mess around with ubuntu on that.

The replacement laptop Im writing this on has Win7, certain features I never really liked over XP or that seemed to have disappeared that were on XP, I'm going to do a clean install on it once I get a back up going as its going terribly slow and Id cleaned out a load of bloatware? which helped a little but it still runs slow.
Ive ordered an external drive to back stuff up onto before doing anything.

Capt'n Midnight

cerastes wrote: »

I want to install a new version of windows that will be supported for a while.
...
What are my options?

Don't forget that if you upgrade an OEM copy of windows the upgrade lives and dies with the motherboard.

Probably not a good investment on an XP era laptop

there was a kinda sorta 64 bit version of XP , ignore it , almost everyone else did

cerastes

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Don't forget that if you upgrade an OEM copy of windows the upgrade lives and dies with the motherboard.

Probably not a good investment on an XP era laptop

there was a kinda sorta 64 bit version of XP , ignore it , almost everyone else did

So, I cant upgrade to Windows 7? I certainly cant seem to find a legitimate option to upgrade, either by virtue of having a legitimate version of Xp which came with one (the netbook) and another I think came as a disc (edit legitimate) on the other.

These are two perfectly functional laptops
The older one is fast enough in ubuntu, but problems connecting to printer and not really having much time to mess about with it have me wanting to make better use of that laptop and just switch to the useability of MS windows.

Im saying Win 7 as I didnt think these laptops (laptop/netnook) would be compatible with later versions of OS or might not be suitable with 64 bit versions.

Capt'n Midnight

cerastes wrote: »

So, I cant upgrade to Windows 7?/QUOTE]

Dabs are doing a copy of window 8 for €109 - just a guideline price
http://www.dabs.ie/category/computing,software,operating-systems/11168-4294956881

Tesco were doing windows 8 laptops for €199

So yes ou can upgrade, it's just that's it's probably not economic to do so.


One option is Ubuntu and run XP in virtualbox with shared drives and try and share the printer , if that else fails, then in Ubuntu print to PDF files on the shared drive and in XP, right click , print
it's a knudge

gooner99

Just a little update. Installed my upgrade copy on the new pc. Did a custom install which does a fresh install. Then added the key via system settings. So far so good, working fine after all windows updates, etc.

gooner99

A cheap option for windows 7. Haven't tried it myself, but at the price there ain't much to lose. Post # 25

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057323554&page=2

Capt'n Midnight

gooner99 wrote: »

A cheap option for windows 7. Haven't tried it myself, but at the price there ain't much to lose. Post # 25

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057323554&page=2

LOL

It points to a DMCA takedown

so maybe not all that legit

gooner99

oops didn't check the link