Hi HS505,

You may upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate using Windows Anytime upgrade option. Also, you will need to purchase a Genuine copy of Windows 8/ Windows 8 Pro to upgrade. The system is shipped with the factory image to which you can restore at anytime if you wish to restore the system back to factory settings.

The system is also shipped with Dell Backup and Recovery Manager application designed to assist customer create recovery media, that is why re-installation media is not shipped along. Dell can only assist you with the operating system installed from the factory.

You may refer to the link http://dell.to/ZCGPtD for support on Windows 8 and to the link http://dell.to/10OXOJJ for Windows 8 Upgrade Checklist. Here is the link http://dell.to/19lbQtd that you can refer to for steps on installing Windows 8.

Hope this helps. Please reply if you have any questions.

You would need to purchase an upgrade version of Windows - Dell doesn't supply these.

Note:  be sure your system works, because once you upgrade the OS, you will have no software support from Dell.

The easiest way to do this is to use the Windows Anytime Upgrade.  You buy a license key online, install the license key and the update takes place automatically, behind the scenes - you don't even need to reload the OS.   It's a lot easier than starting over with a clean reinstall using a DVD.

You'll buy a new license key anyway - though upgrading DOES render the existing factory restore worthless.  BEFORE you start the update, make the DVDs or recovery flash drive and keep it in a safe place.  If you subsequently need to restore the system, you'll need the media to do so.

Hi HS505,

Theoretically speaking the you should be able to perform factory restore to restore the system back to factory state after upgrading the Windows through Windows Anytime Upgrade. Still I would recommend that you create a Recovery Disk to restore the system back if you face any issue in restoring from recovery partition.

Yes, restoring from factory image will delete the other newly created partition as it will restore the system back to the factory image like you got it from Dell.

Hope this helps. Please reply if you have any questions.

No, if you upgrade to 8 you'll need to download the 8 drivers from Dell.

Yes, there will be drivers to install after you install the OS.