Windows 7 Breakdown

[FreakingHell]

This is correct to a point. If you change computers, or change any major hardware (motherboard), the normal internet activation will fail, if the key is tied to other hardware. If you activate the key by phone, however, they will ask you (pretty much verbatim) "How many computers is this software installed on?". Answer honestly, "one", and they give you a key to enter to activate it. Simple as that. I've done this a few times, and each took no longer than 5 minutes on the line with a representative. This, at least, has been my experience with OEM keys in the past.

I have heard that sometimes they give you the code you need and sometimes they don't. I have no personal experience though.

 

[Furiosity]

I'm not sure if anyone has said this, but from what I read, people are saying you have to wipe your HDD to install W7 from XP, this isn't entirely true. From XP, choose the Custom (Advanced) settings in the Windows 7 setup, choose the drive your XP is on, and Windows 7 will install there. The old windows files will be in a folder called "Windows.old" when you get into Windows 7.

Every file from XP, should still be in the windows.old folder, where you can move them to wherever you want.

It's pretty much a clean install, just with your old files in the windows.old folder which is right under the windows folder in C:\

I'm 99.9% sure every file from XP will be there, I say this because I've moved from XP to 7 2 times, first I had a bunch of Downloaded and files in my XP Download Folder, and Saved games folder, and music, when I checked my windows.old they were all there and i just moved them to where I wanted them and deleted the windows.old folder, it will warn you you're deleting windows files, it's safe because it's the old windows. I didn't check the program files in the windows.old, 'cause I'd have to reinstall them anyway 'cause I'm on Windows 7 now. But there was a program files folder, so I'm 99.9% sure everything will be there, back up still though if you want.

 

[Snipeye]

Alright. Thanks for the help guys, it really helps.

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