Windows anytime upgrade vs clean install

buggaby

Distinguished
Nov 4, 2010
82
1
18,645
I'm wondering about the how the Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade from Home Basic to Professional works compared with a clean install of Pro. I read somewhere that when switching from Vista to 7, you could do the "upgrade" version, but it resulted in a slower OS than just doing a clean install of 7. Since this is just versions of the same OS, maybe that's not a problem here. It would certainly be easier to spend 10 minutes rather than doing a complete install! Does anyone have any knowledge about the efficiency of the Anytime Upgrade for Windows 7?
 

buggaby

Distinguished
Nov 4, 2010
82
1
18,645
I guess I was wondering if this is true even for the version upgrade. It's not a whole new OS. There are just a few extra features, so maybe it's effectively the same as a clean install...
 
The anytime upgrade shouldn't have to much of a system impact. My guess is that the upgrade doesn't touch the core of the OS but simply adds the features missing from the lower version. This is much less of an impact that switching from Vista to 7.

I don't have much evidence to back this up though, just a bit of speculation.
 

Supermuncher85

Distinguished
I upgraded from home to ultimate and I can't say I noticed a negative performance difference. I did however get a bucket load of new features like network backup and bitlocker.

I will say though that professional really has all the features one needs. I only went ultimate because I got the upgrade for free.
 

Zenthar

Distinguished
Just to add to the discussion, I'm not even sure an "Anytime Upgrade" key can be used to do a clean install. I just started doing some tests at home right now using VMWare, but not much luck after only 45 minutes :p
 

Supermuncher85

Distinguished
I'd assume your using an upgrade media for the install and not a retail version. Should be an easy fix with the following:

Open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/

Change MediaBootInstall from "1" to "0".

Close RegEdit.

Start Menu on the Command Line utility. Right-click this shortcut and choose "Run as administrator."
Click Yes to the UAC prompt.

In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm press enter

wait for the "Command completed successfully" dialog.

Then, close the command line window and reboot.
After Windows 7 reboots, Right Click Computer select Properties select change product Key.
 

Zenthar

Distinguished
I have a "universal DVD" that I made from 2 retail ones (it includes all the versions except Enterprise in both x86 and x64 flavors). However, my license is really an upgrade one.

I found a website with the information you just provided and plan on testing this tonight. Since I own both an original OEM licence of the base OS and the anytime upgrade one, there should be no "legal issues" of doing so.

I'm trying this to have a 64 bits OS on my netbook (the Starter is only 32 bits so the Anytime Upgrade cannot normally get you to 64 bits).