Windows 7 Upgrade Deal

Fisher's Mom

Fisher's Mom

Mother Superior
For those of you that intend to upgrade to Windows 7 and have a .edu email address, here's a deal for you! $29.99 for Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional upgrade! My sons upgraded last night using this and I will today (using my Mac loving friend's .edu email address since I don't have one.) This is obviously intended for students, teachers, and alumni but the only thing you need to take advantage is the email address.

http://windows7.digitalriver.com/st...=iZYFRwoBAkcAADeROQwAAAAL&rests=1256400501235
 
When I ordered XP Pro the vendor sent me both XP Pro and XP Pro X64.

I installed Pro (32) in one partition and just for Ss&Gs installed x64 in another.

Let me be clear, I'm not a 'Power App' user, this basic duel core machine is rarely at 100% and rarely uses above 1 gig RAM (3 gig installed).

XP x64 was notably faster and ... smoother? ... than the 32 bit version of XP Pro.

I would be using x64 IF I could have found a anti-virus that worked with x64.

Where I'm going with this is,

Once authorized for the upgrade you can obtain either the 32 bit or 64 bit versions.

In reading through the links provided by FM I see this Win 7 'upgrade' will only upgrade over like OSes, 32 bit for 32 bit, 64 bit for 64 bit. That would imply if your using 32 bit your stuck upgrading to 32 bit.

However, there is a small section that implies there is the ability to do Clean installs of the OS. Now I may be incorrect here but 'clean install' would seem to imply there does not need to be an installed version of a Windows/ MS for installing the new OS (I seem to remember there being a problem with this in the past, I think I had to install Win 95 to get Win NT 4 to load.)

So I'm thinking if one does a total backup of the hard drive one should be able to upgrade from 32 to the 64 bit version without losing any data.

After my experience with x64 I'm getting ready to jump on this offer. That is once I confirm my assumptions on being able to make clean installations. Thats most important.
 
As soon as I can get some conformation as to if older software like Office XP Pro will work with a x64 system then I will buy my new machine with it otherwise stay with XP.
 
>>Clean Install

in my travels I am given to understand W7 will "transfer" settings, data, etc. from Vista, but will not transfer anything (successfully) from XP.

from XP one must do a "clean install" meaning that W7 comes up as a virgin installation, you must re-install any of your prior applications and copy back any old data.

unware XP users who have no real, current, proven backups could have a very unpleasant Microsoft moment . . .

the "data" part is a bit fuzzy - some have tried to keep their old XP "data" files others report the W7 install mashes&trashes pretty much everything.

the major issue with any of the 64 bit systems has been drivers. some 32 bits apps don't behave well, but if there's no driver for your printer, tends to limit the usefulness.

also, if an application is not explicitly coded to take advantage of 64 bit systems, it will probably run very marginally faster - the background system is faster - and typically with lots of RAM 32 bit apps _seem_ to run faster. of course, there is value in user perception!
 
In my case the program is written using XP Pro and Office XP Pro which is an easy backup and restore. Now the program would not run under Vista at all so I gave up and did a clean install of XP Pro which I have two certified copies of and 1 certified copy of XP Media version.
 
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