Windows 7... we want to know what you want to know!

Bob Miller here. I am the technology officer for Poverty Bay Power Squadron. We specialize in providing community service education. We have upgraded our computers over the last several years and they all came with Vista Home Premium as the original equipment manufacturer installed OS. When I read through system upgrade restrictions for Windows 7 it seems to say that we cannot upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7. Is this correct? If so, for what possible reason? Thanks.

Hi Bob--

I'm moving your post on over to our help forum and alerting our customer service so they can help. You may also find this thread helpful for you.

Best,

Megan

Thanks Megan.

Hi Bob,

  It seems that after XP, Microsoft has discontinued the ability to do what I call "cross upgrade" (or downgrade) between the two product lines of Home and Business / Professional editions. You cannot legally downgrade or upgrade Vista Home or Windows 7 Home to any Professional or Business edition.

  There is a very long forum discussion that includes a fair bit of information on this subject. Since the donation program is for nonprofits (ie small businesses) Microsoft has not made the Home edition upgrades available through TechSoup Stock. Since what we have are upgrades and not full-license products, you are required to have a legal license of one of the specified operating systems in the upgrade path.

  On one of the Windows 7 Professional product pages it states: "This is an upgrade product. To install this operating system, you must have a licensed installation of one of the following operating systems on the device where you are installing the upgrade: Windows Vista Enterprise, Business, or Ultimate; Windows XP Professional or Tablet PC; Windows 2000 Professional; Windows NT Workstation 4.0; or Windows 98. You cannot upgrade from the Home editions of Windows XP or Windows Vista."

Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Autumn

Hi Bob-

I'm not sure if this information is still useful to you, but it may be to others.

You can get Windows 7 discs from TechSoup and install them on your computers.  What MS doesn't allow is doing an "in-place" upgrade from Vista Home to Windows 7 Business (as Autumn explained).

But you can use the Windows 7 discs to do a "clean" install on your computers, basically starting from scratch with the new operating system.  You have to backup all your data and programs first, then install Windows 7, then install your software again and copy back your old data.  

In a nutshell the process would be:

1. Backup all your data onto another drive.
2. In Vista, insert the Windows 7 disc, and run the Windows 7 Setup program on the disc.
3. The computer will restart from the Windows 7 install disc.  During Setup you must erase your hard drive and install Windows 7 from a clean state.
4. After setup is finished, connect your backup drive, and use the Windows Easy Transfer program to copy your data from the backup onto your new Windows 7 installation.
5. Install all your programs again in Windows 7.

It would be easier if MS supported Home > Business upgrades, but since they don't, this is really the next best option.  More information is available here and elsewhere online.

Daniel

Even though Daniel's instructions might work to upgrade a home edition to Win7 the upgrade path is not allowed based on the license restrictions that Microsoft has placed on the volume licensed products, so even if it works it doesn't comply with Microsoft's licensing terms.  You still need to get a legally qualified to upgrade OS to use the upgrade products.

Dave