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Does installing the upgrade version of Win7 invalidate Windows XP/Vist


Eric Legge

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Guest LilBambi
This whole situation is ridiclous. It would be the right policy to adopt to allow users with a genuine installation of Windows XP on desktop or laptop PC to use the Upgrade version of Win7 and keep a dual-boot system - because doing so requires a clean install of Win7 and means that users will have to spend hours or even days moving their settings and files and reinstalling their XP apps and utilities, which might might not work in Win7.
I totally agree Eric. It's nuts.
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Ed Bott has further insight about Windows 7 licensing: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1514&tag=col1;post-1514He confirmed my assertion that a Full Retail Version of any Microsoft operating system is transferable even if it is used as the basis for a retail upgrade to a newer version. Ergo this means to me that retail upgrade version doesn't negate the right of a full retail previous version to be transferred to another machine. Thus, the older full retail version can be legitimately installed on a Mac with Boot Camp or in a virtual machine. Whether it is allowed as a dual boot with the newer version is unclear to me though.Interestingly his discussion of the OEM licenses really floored me when says OEM licenses cannot be restored to replacement motherboards that you personally install; only the OEM has the right to do that for you without a new license.

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Ed Bott has further insight about Windows 7 licensing: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1514&tag=col1;post-1514He confirmed my assertion that a Full Retail Version of any Microsoft operating system is transferable even if it is used as the basis for a retail upgrade to a newer version. Ergo this means to me that retail upgrade version doesn't negate the right of a full retail previous version to be transferred to another machine. Thus, the older full retail version can be legitimately installed on a Mac with Boot Camp or in a virtual machine. Whether it is allowed as a dual boot with the newer version is unclear to me though.Interestingly his discussion of the OEM licenses really floored me when says OEM licenses cannot be restored to replacement motherboards that you personally install; only the OEM has the right to do that for you without a new license.
I totally disagree with this. If you install a retail version of XP on one machine, can you legally install it on another one? Only if you remove it from the first machine. So if you use its license to upgrade one machine to Win 7, then you can't legally install it on another machine without removing Win 7 from the first machine. Edited by lewmur
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This discussion is precisely the reason I'm going to purchase a full version of Win 7, albeit I will be purchasing an OEM DVD.My plan is to keep using the retail copy of XP pro I bought at the same time I purchased my notebook as a multiboot option with Win 7. I paid $299.00 USD for the XP license and have no desire to throw that away by using an upgrade DVD.Everything I've seen including the links in this discussion indicate that this is what will happen if I were to use the upgrade DVD.By buying the OEM Win 7 DVD I can save a lot of money ($129.00 USD vs $199.00 USD for the Home version) and I'm willing to accept the conditions and restrictions of OEM software, that is I have no plans on installing on anything but one machine and I can provide my own support.As for the comment made earlier about "a logistical nightmare" invalidating all copies of XP by using the upgrade DVD of Win 7,well that is one of the reasons for the Windows Genuine " Advantage" validation scam/"tool". After installing Win 7 using an upgrade DVD by using a previous XP license to validate the Win 7 install, any attempt to do Windows updates on the XP install would trigger Windows Genuine "Advantage" an easy thing to accomplish using the required to install WGA tool. Of course avoiding any Windows updates might prevent that from happening but you are still in violation of the EULA.Although the EULA isn't a "law" it is still a legal and binding contract that you have to agree to before being to allow any software protected by a EULA.M$ has thought of everything.Of course I could be wrong here.

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....Of course avoiding any Windows updates might prevent that from happening but you are still in violation of the EULA.Although the EULA isn't a "law" it is still a legal and binding contract that you have to agree to before being to allow any software protected by a EULA.M$ has thought of everything.Of course I could be wrong here.
Whether or not the EULA is legal and binding is open to debate. I don't think it has ever been tested in court and there are numerous reasons to think it is NOT a valid contract. But if you are running a business and someone reports you for violating the EULA, it would cost a lot of money to test it in court. Edited by lewmur
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I've gotten to the point where I no longer bother with a dual-boot. I dual-booted Vista and Win7 beta/RC for about a year, but after about a month, I don't think I ever booted back into Vista. I've never found a need to reinstall XP either. Windows 7 is very good, and short of outdated hardware/software (which the XP virtualization would likely solve), there's just no need to go back. I bought 2 Win 7 upgrades, one for my machine and one for my wife's. We now have two invalidated licenses, one of XP and one of Vista, and that's just fine. If you think about it, it makes sense. This is an upgrade version. It's job is to upgrade a full license of an older version to the new version. There is still one licensed OS - the upgrade license supersedes the original.

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Ed Bott has further insight about Windows 7 licensing: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=1514&tag=col1;post-1514He confirmed my assertion that a Full Retail Version of any Microsoft operating system is transferable even if it is used as the basis for a retail upgrade to a newer version.
This is from the same article:
So, who doesn’t qualify for an upgrade license? * And if you want to set up a dual-boot system, keeping your current version alongside your new copy of Windows 7, you need a full license. You can evaluate the new OS for up to 30 days before activating it, but if you decide to activate and use the retail upgrade full-time, you have to stop using your old edition.That last one always surprises people, but it’s right there in the upgrade license terms:
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