Windows 7 Confused on the pricing of Windows 7 for XP users

Drew said:

You cannot "upgrade" XP > Windows 7. Requires Clean Install

Link Removed

Cheers,
Drew

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I understand this but even still XP users are eligible for the "upgrade" price. My main concern is where I would purchase an upgrade SKU for Windows 7 64 and what the point of purchasing a non upgrade version of the OS would be.

Good Day! Buy the upgrade, but do a clean install

wpurcell said:

Good Day! Buy the upgrade, but do a clean install

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So you are saying that the upgrade functions the same as the full price version but for less money?

Why would Microsoft do that? haha

There should be some way of "proving" you already have a qualifying version of Windows - so that you get the "Upgrade" price.

The installer may recognize you have the qualifying version installed, or you may be asked to insert the installation media for XP/Vista during the install process.

SIW2 said:

There should be some way of "proving" you already have a qualifying version of Windows - so that you get the "Upgrade" price.

The installer may recognize you have the qualifying version installed, or you may be asked to insert the installation media for XP/Vista during the install process.

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Ahhhhh Ok that makes alot more sense. Hopefully you can just put in the installer disc and it will recognize it because I sadly lost my original install disc long ago......

My guess is if a person were building a bare bones computer. They would need the full installation cd

I have read a few different things from the upgrade. One thing was you will need to start the upgrade process from within XP, and on the reboot, it does a clean install, and renames your XP Windows and Program Files to .OLD so you can still get to them to grab something, or delete. With Vista as your original OS, it obviously just performs a regular upgrade.

But, hopefully, you could also do a "trial" install with your upgrade DVD, by not supplying the license key. Then do the upgrade install after that. This is really the only way you could do it when your system potentially gets hosed, or you want to do a clean install from Vista. I cannot see them wanting you to put XP or Vista back on, first.

Maybe they will just trust you actually did own a previous version. We will find out on Oct. 22nd.

confused said:

My guess is if a person were building a bare bones computer. They would need the full installation cd

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Confused is not confused. XP qualifies as "upgradeable" but requires a clean install (really also recommended for upgrading from Vista, but not required). If you are upgrading from Windows 2000, or Windows 98, or something older, or you are installing the first os on a newly assembled computer, you must buy the full version. If you are upgrading from XP or Vista, you can do so with the upgrade version even tho XP requires a clean install.

When you place the upgrade DVD in your computer, it will look to see if you have a qualifing os already installed. If so, you can then procede with your installation.

NOTE: If you have an upgrade DVD, you must keep the qualifying installation disc (XP or Vista) for future reinstalls of the new system. When you format and reinstall your Windows 7 installation in the future (with your upgrade disc) , you will have to reinstall the qualifying OS first, then install Windows 7.

john3347 said:

Confused is not confused. XP qualifies as "upgradeable" but requires a clean install (really also recommended for upgrading from Vista, but not required). If you are upgrading from Windows 2000, or Windows 98, or something older, or you are installing the first os on a newly assembled computer, you must buy the full version. If you are upgrading from XP or Vista, you can do so with the upgrade version even tho XP requires a clean install.

When you place the upgrade DVD in your computer, it will look to see if you have a qualifing os already installed. If so, you can then procede with your installation.

NOTE: If you have an upgrade DVD, you must keep the qualifying installation disc (XP or Vista) for future reinstalls of the new system. When you format and reinstall your Windows 7 installation in the future (with your upgrade disc) , you will have to reinstall the qualifying OS first, then install Windows 7.

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Ahhh I see. Thank you very much for clearing that up! Hopefully I will never have to reinstall seeing as that seems to be a major inconvenience installing two OS just to restore 1. Though it beats paying full price for the OS I guess.

Now as for what Sliver said about W7 re naming all of the XP files to the .old extension. Does this mean I have to accommodate enough space to my C:\ partition for both XP and Windows 7? I was planning on making my C:\ partition just a mere 25GB for W7 (just to give it some breathing room) but with what Sliver is saying, I now have to make my C:\ partition 50GB to accomadate my old XP files as well?

john3347 said:

First, I question why you want to make your "C" drive so small. I would not recommend "cramping" it that close even if you are going to save your files on another partition. Next, the XP OS does not remain on the harddrive, it is replaced during the install of Windows 7. It is a bit more complicated "under the covers", but basically the upgrade mostly has to "see" Windows XP (or Vista) to know that it is a valid upgrade and does not require a full install disc. It does also use certain XP files to create the Windows.old files before XP is totally overwritten. Windows.old is not the complete previously installed OS and files, It is only a collection of your existing user files from XP. The size of Windows.old, of course depends on the user files that you have on your old system. (Suggestion: save your work elsewhere also - don't depend entirely on Windows.old for all your saved work. Things sometimes just go wrong)

And Yes, it seems cumbersome to have to install the old OS before using the upgrade to reinstall the system after a format, but that is just a small inconvenience when saving the price difference between upgrade and full install.

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Is there a point to making it more than 25GB? AFAIK Windows 7 only takes up around 20GB right? What size would you recommend for my C drive?

john3347 said:

XP qualifies as "upgradeable" but requires a clean install

If you are upgrading from XP or Vista, you can do so with the upgrade version even tho XP requires a clean install.

When you place the upgrade DVD in your computer, it will look to see if you have a qualifing os already installed. If so, you can then procede with your installation.

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Even though I have replaced Xp x64 with W7 x64, if I reinstall my Xp pro x64 OEM version I'll be able to legally buy the Windows 7 Pro x64 Upgrade right? I've been under the impression that I will have to buy the full version since I don't use Vista.

Update: I guess this doesn't require an answer. Thank you for clearing it up.

AkoCham said:

Is there a point to making it more than 25GB? AFAIK Windows 7 only takes up around 20GB right? What size would you recommend for my C drive?

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With 71 programs installed, some program installers in the Downloads library and a few pictures my W7 installation is up to 22.8 Gb. Of course I'm using the x64 version and it's bigger than x86.

stueycaster said:

With 71 programs installed, some program installers in the Downloads library and a few pictures my W7 installation is up to 22.8 Gb. Of course I'm using the x64 version and it's bigger than x86.

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Well yeah I will also be using the x64 edition so my W7 install will also be around 22.8GB. Would you recommend my C drive being 30GB instead of 25GB then?

AkoCham said:

Well yeah I will also be using the x64 edition so my W7 install will also be around 22.8GB. Would you recommend my C drive being 30GB instead of 25GB then?

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There are reasons for doing otherwise, good reasons, but I do not partition my "C" drive at all. I give the whole harddrive to the "C" partition (whether 40 GB or 640GB). My OS, my applications, my saved files, everything goes to "C". I save a drive image daily on my Windows Home Server and also back up my saved files on an external USB harddrive. (Also, those who are obsessed with speed (which does NOT include me) will note that it takes a few nano-seconds longer to cross a partition to save a file than to save it on the same partition that it was created on. Same for opening a saved file.) Only you can determine what size to make your "C" drive, if you choose to partition, depending on why you wish to partition it and how you intend to use it.

edit: Err on the side of unnecessarily large rather than too small. It is easier to have unused space on a partition than to run out of space and have to re-partition later.

AkoCham said:

Well yeah I will also be using the x64 edition so my W7 install will also be around 22.8GB. Would you recommend my C drive being 30GB instead of 25GB then?

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Mine is 35 Gb. I wouldn't go much smaller than that.

I personally would not make a partition smaller than 100G+ for 7.
Free space still plays a big part in Windows.

The free space (space that doesn't appear to ever be used) is used for things.
Try using a windows system for a couple of months daily with less than 10% free space and see what happens.
Trust me, it's not good, you best back up your data.

Also, defrag needs at least 15% (should be 20%) free space for defrag operations alone.

If you add memory, you will need to increase the page file, which will also use a bit more space.
If you do not use a properly sized page file, you are not running windows optimally.

This might start a new debate, but, the idea has been around since XP has been around.
Page File? or No Page File? , Small or Not?

Answer =

Initial Size: 1.5 x ammount of ram installed. So 1G = (1024 x 1.5 = 1536) You might see it recommend 1537, use that, but don't go under 1536 (or whatever the number is for the amount of ram) for initial size.
Maximum Size: 3 x ammout of ram installed. So 1G = (1024 x 3 = 3072)

With a true Max of 4096 regardless of the amount over 4G's of installed RAM.

Always round to the Gig (ex. 1G = 1024 and 2G = 2048 etc.) and (512M = 512M and 768M = 768M etc.)
So, if you have 1.5G RAM (1024 + 512M = 1536 x 1.5 = 2304)

And then there is Shadow Copies (Restore Points), Temp files, Recycle Bin, Additional Applications, and more.

Trust me, if you are using your system heavily, you will run into problems.


Please remember,,,,,,, Windows Vista/7 is NOT XP. Don't think of it as such.

With that said..... John did mention multiple partitions on a singe drive is not a good thing.
He's right, if you are doing this, expect a bit of slow response.
You are better off running 2 x 100G drives than 1 x 200G partitioned drive.

One more item

In addition to everything that Tepid just itemized, is the space required for RAM swap files if you have less than gobs and gobs of RAM. Maybe up to 2 or 3 GB there. While 2 or 3 GB is negligible on a 160 or 500GB harddrive, it really gets cramped if you have 25 GB OS and applications on a 30 GB partition.

Thanks for clearing everything up guys! I had no idea how much RAM played into the Windows partition. I'll have to take this into heavy consideration once I am installing.