Contact Forum Editor

Send an email to our Forum Editor:

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the Forum Editor know who sent the message. Both your name and email address will not be used for any other purpose.

Windows 7 Help

It's free to register, to post a question or to start / join a discussion

View Forum Rules | Contact Forum Editor

 

Upgrade Licensing Issues from XP to 7

banana007
Resolved

Likes # 0

Posted November 19, 2011 at 9:17PM

I had XP. I upgraded to windows 7 a year or so ago and all went well.

Recently I bought new Mobo bundle, SSD etc and wanted to do a re-install of Win 7 (I needed the 64bit anyway).

Trying to activate the install its informing me that the license is no longer valid as i did a fresh install and didnt upgrade from XP.

Surely when you upgrade, the license you have is to use windows 7 as your primary OS period, keeping the original full version of XP?

Are they suggesting that if, on my old machine, if i wanted to do a fresh install from the upgraded XP i would first have to install XP and then Win 7?

Cant be right?

What to do? Anyone had anything similar?

Like this post
difarn

Likes # 0

Posted November 19, 2011 at 10:33PM

According to articles in other blogs you will have to reinstall XP and then Win 7.

Like this post
ventanas

Likes # 0

Posted November 19, 2011 at 10:37PM

Sounds about right to me. You have an upgrade disc that cannot find the qualifying earlier version. This version must be present.

I have been in this psosition twice when upgrading from Vista, the earlier qualifying version has to go on first.

The earlier version of XP was almost certainly OEM, and you have changed the motherboard. That disqualifies the OEM version of XP, so you cannot reinstall that, even if you wanted to. So you cannot upgrade.

Only solution seems to be a new full version of Windows 7, sorry.

Like this post
rdave13

Likes # 0

Posted November 19, 2011 at 10:52PM

Have a look at option 4 but worth reading it all.

Like this post
difarn

Likes # 0

Posted November 20, 2011 at 7:30AM

Hi,

Been looking further into this - had already looked at option 4 above and it is worth having a go. Before you do this perhaps you would also like to look at this

Like this post
difarn

Likes # 1

Posted November 20, 2011 at 7:32AM

Hi again,

Sorry my link didn't work:-

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howuseyourwindows7upgradediskfreshpc?page=0,1

Like this post  
banana007

Likes # 0

Posted November 20, 2011 at 2:07PM

Thanks for the reponse. Ventanas: surely if having xp was a pre-requisite for installation it shouldnt let me install windows 7 at all? I still have the orig XP disc so i just thought i needed it to qualify the license. Its a full XP Pro (though 32 bit)

rdave13: option 4 looked good but too late now. In his initial warning above optoin 1 he does say they allowed you to install win 7 without having to install xp first. Not too sure why option 1 isnt usable.

difarn: ill have a look at the url and get back

Like this post
banana007

Likes # 0

Posted November 21, 2011 at 10:22PM

I tried the reg hack that in the page difarn suggested and lo it worked. Activated fine. The only thing i noticed was it changed my theme to be an "Unsaved" one which was easily rectified.

Many thanks.

Like this post
difarn

Likes # 0

Posted November 22, 2011 at 6:45AM

Great result - nice when something works out isn't it?

Like this post

Reply to this topic

This thread has been locked.



Check out PC Advisor's other tech forums

Send to a friend

Email this article to a friend or colleague:

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the recipient know who sent the story. Both your name and the recipient's name and address will not be used for any other purpose.