[geeks] The illusion of Windows 7

[Nate]

On Oct 31, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Jonathan J. M. Katz wrote:

> With sparing you folks the details, you can't upgrade from 32 bit XP
> to 64 bit Windows 7.

There is "upgrade" in the license sense, and "upgrade" in the install  
sense.  Microsoft "upgrade" licenses are valid for up to two releases  
back, but will only perform an upgrade install one release back.  For  
instance if you own Windows NT 4.0 you can buy/use the "upgrade"  
version of XP, but you can't perform an upgrade install of XP, you  
have to perform a clean install, which will ask you to pop in the NT  
media at one point during the install.  Any "upgrade" license is not  
fixed to 32-bit or 64-bit architecture (though OEM copies of Windows  
Vista/7 only come in one architecture or another, retail Vista/7 come  
with both 32-bit and 64-bit or entitle you to both if you didn't get  
two discs, i.e. you can call Microsoft for the other).

In short, a Windows 7 64-bit upgrade is usable with Windows XP 32-bit.

With that said, you:

1. Can't do an upgrade *install* to a 64-bit Windows from a 32-bit  
Windows (any version, desktop or server), you must always do a clean  
install
3. Can't do an upgrade *install* to Windows 7 (64-bit or 32-bit) from  
Windows XP directly (64-bit or 32-bit), however you can go XP 32-bit  
to Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 32-bit (and the intermediate Vista  
install gives you a 30 day window where you can use it non- 
authenticated, so in theory you could borrow a copy of Vista 32-bit to  
do this)
4. Can't do an upgrade install to Vista 64-bit from XP 64-bit, you can  
only do a clean install of Vista or Windows 7 from XP 64-bit (don't  
ask me why, but it's a fact)
5. Can always do a clean install of Windows 7 (even "upgrade"  
versions) over any version of XP or Vista and retain your data (you'll  
have to reinstall your apps)

> So now I either have to find a copy of XP 64 bit to install OR find a
> Windows 7 "full" key.

If you have an XP license and media, a Windows 7 upgrade version is  
all you need to install/use Windows 7 64-bit.

And XP 64-bit won't help you one bit... you can't do an upgrade  
install to anything else at all with XP 64-bit.  (A Windows 7 "full"  
key won't help you one bit either, it doesn't do anything special that  
the upgrade version can't do other than entitle you to use it without  
owning any previous versions of Windows.)

If you don't mind re-installing all your apps, just do a clean install  
of Windows 7 (any architecture), it will rename the WINDOWS to  
WINDOWS.OLD and keep your user profile(s) and any other files or  
folders in the root directory in their place.  (Oddly enough Windows 7  
comes with and throws up all sorts of warnings about backing up your  
data because you could loose it all, but you have to literally go out  
of your way in the installer to actually delete your old data, and  
it's not exactly clear about how it's going to retain all your data  
either!)

Perhaps the mess Microsoft created with the student download/installer  
for Windows 7 has added to your confusion... however you can download  
the ISO now, I don't think you'll have a problem anymore:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-7-iso-download-bootable,8946.html

> Bloody ridiculous.

You think that's absurd?  How about the fact that you can do an  
upgrade install from Windows 7 RC to RTM (final), so the capability is  
there, just undocumented and unsupported.  Here's an example going  
from RC (which is Ultimate) to RTM Home Premium:

1. Copy the contents of your retail DVD (32-bit or 64-bit) to a  
location on your hard drive.
2. Go into the sources folder and open the file cversion.ini, then set  
MinClient=7077.0 and save the file.
3. Run Regedit and navigate to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT 
\Current Version. Find and edit the two registry entries EditionID and  
ProductName and change these from "Ultimate" to the retail version you  
own, i.e. "HomePremium" (without the quotes) for EditionID and  
"Windows 7 Home Premium" (again without the quotes) for ProductName.
4. Run Setup.exe from the directory you saved Windows 7 to your hard  
drive and choose Upgrade which will begin the process of upgrading  
your RC version to full retail release without losing any of your old  
settings or installed applications.

Also, variations of step 3 also work if you want to cross-grade, i.e.  
you've installed Windows 7 Professional RTM and now you want to get  
Windows 7 Enterprise RTM on the same system and retain all the  
installed applications and data.  Of course, this is unsupported, but  
in my testing, it works.

There is no hack I know of though for upgrade installing 32-bit to 64- 
bit sadly, though.  Just clean install followed by reinstall all  
applications.

- Nate