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Win7 upgrade dvd - can i do a clean install
Can someone help me, when I call Dell I get told many different things
My PC has Vista Home Premium installed.
Today I received "Windows 7 Upgrade Option" & an "Upgrade Assistant" DVDs
Is this an upgrade version or a full version, given its call "option".
I want to do a clean install & ideally reformat my drive rather than install over Vista - can I do it with this version & simply boot off the DVD & do a full install.
Some websites seem to indicate you can do a clean install through an upgrade DVD, but there seems to be a difference in reformatting & doing a new clean install.
Not sure if there is a difference.
Dell are saying if my OS got corrupted & I had to reformat, I would need to 1st format & install Vista, then put the upgrade Win7 DVD in?
Can someone who has done this please let me know what my options are here?
Thanks
jsktx
729 Posts
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November 13th, 2009 13:00
Even with an upgrade version you can do a clean install. When you boot the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD you are given two options; Upgrade or Custom. Selecting Custom will allow you to format the drive and do a clean install. That's exactly what I did. Sorry don't know anything about the Upgrade Assistant from Dell.
DELL-Chris Bu
184 Posts
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November 13th, 2009 13:00
larrens,
Thank you for contacting the Dell Community Forums. The Windows 7 disc you received as part of your kit comes with an upgrade product key. This key typically will not work unless you run the install from within a previous, compatible operating system, so if you tried to do a clean install from that disc onto a blank hard drive, you would probably get a message saying the key was invalid. In the past, Microsoft allowed users to insert a previous OS CD to confirm that they had a qualifying operating system, but starting with Windows Vista they changed the process and now the option to confirm compliance by inserting a CD from a previous OS is no longer available. You may want to take a look at this forum thread to see what your options are if you decide to try a clean install from upgrade media on a blank drive.
jsktx
729 Posts
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November 13th, 2009 16:00
Yes that is correct, but like Chris' thread indicates an existing eligible OS must be present for the upgrade to continue.
Davet50
14.4K Posts
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November 13th, 2009 16:00
see HERE. Follow the steps just substitute windows 7 for Vista. I did this on both of my systems so it works.
You can use it on a clean drive and you do not need a previous version Os
larrens
25 Posts
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November 13th, 2009 16:00
Thanks for the forum threda - so reading that it seems that as long as I do a "Custom install" from the Win7 DVD & format it through this process I will be ok & it will work?
Is my understanding here correct?