buy vista get windows 7 free?

Y

ymee

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 29, 2005
Messages
99
Hi Guys,

I was planning on buying Vista Ultimate from Newegg, the OEM version for $189 and they claim that I get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it's released. Is this true? If so, isn't this a cheaper way of getting Windows 7 ultimate? Are there any gotchas? Just want to make sure before I plonk the money down.

Thanks
 
Some resellers are now offering such deals, yep. But realize that what you're getting is the full version of Vista (whichever one you choose) and when Windows 7 is released you'll get the upgrade version of whichever version of Windows 7 matches that Vista version you purchased.

It's not a full retail copy of Windows 7, just an upgrade version just like what people buying laptops and desktops now will get; they're paying for a machine with a full copy of Vista whatever on it, with the later upgrade version of Windows 7 to come along "for free" once it's out.
 
Does that mean I can't do a clean install of Win 7 with the upgrade version? I have to install vista first and then Win 7 on top?
 
you should still be able to do a clean install. However, the win7 has to detect that activated-vista is on their first.

edit: in case there's some confusion, windows 7 will look on your drive, find vista, then reformat and reinstall win7 over it.
 
thats a PITA, I was hoping the serial number would be good enough for win7 to recognize it's an upgrade version.
 
Anyone know yet whether the "upgrade the upgrade" trick that could be done with Vista still works with 7?
 
Well it's not too big of a deal with proper planning. Do a base install of vista, activate it and then use something like ghost or acronis to make a image of the machine and store it on a extrenal hard drive or dvd or whatever.

Then install 7 as you would normally and go from there. If you ever have to reinstall both ghost and acronis true image allow you to make a bootable cd to mount and restore your vista pre 7 image.

With modern hardware your looking at about 1/2 hour for the image restoration and maybe another 1/2 to 45 mins to install 7. Not the end of the world in my book...
 
or just get in on MSDNAA for $20 and get a non-upgrade copy of Win7 Pro. Not like Ultimate offers anything worthwhile over it anyways.
 
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