Does Win7 Upgrade disable current Windows Install?

[phexac]

I just downloaded the student upgrade version of Win7 Home Premium. My plan is to do custom install and install the new OS onto a new hard drive. So the old Vista OS that I am running right now should not be affected. My question however is whether MS will then disable the old OS by disabling the product key. I would prefer to retain the use of my old OS for the duration of the few-days migrating process for obvious reasons. I hope that is possible.

 

[MStele]

When you boot from the disc and do a clean install, it will take your old Documents, Program Files, and Windows directorys and rename them to .old. Once installed you just retrieve what files you need from those directorys and delete them. So in answer to your question, yes its disabled.

I installed Win7Pro-64 upgrade student download coming from xp.

 

[phexac]

But I am installing it on another partition....how does that affect the OS completely different logical drive?

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: phexac
But I am installing it on another partition....how does that affect the OS completely different logical drive?

This is an interesting question IMO...

In one sense, it stands to reason that if you upgrade your previous version you should forfeit your previous key and rights to use that software. On the other hand, what do you do if your upgrade OS needs to be re-installed and you have to install your old OS first?

...the logical solution would be that your upgrade key becomes a full version key once the old key is forfeited. Although, I doubt it works that way.

 

[corkyg]

I can tell you from experience that nothing will change on your old system if you put 7 on a separate HDD. I have that very arrangement and it is no problem. I can switch from a Vista boot to a Win 7 boot easily. (Mobile rack.)

This may help make your upgrade bootable.

boot

Another way would be to clone your old drive to the new one. Disconnect the old, then upgrade the new one with your new Win 7 disk. It will replace your old OS on the new drive, but not on your old drive. It will stay as it was.

 

[SimMike2]

I recommend putting your different OS's on the primary partition of different hard drives. To toggle between the two, reboot your computer, go to BIOS and change the hard drive boot priority. Using a boot manager is way more trouble, and the potential for kind of hosing both installs if one of the disks fail. Maybe not hosing, but forcing you to go online to find out how to fix the master boot record. When they are on different drives, which you change via the BIOS, they don't seem to mess with each other.

That being said, when I install Windows 7, I am going to unplug my other hard drive with the version of Vista I want to keep. After the install, I'll plug it back in. I don't think I need to do this, but in this instance, I am going to go this route.

 

[pashbe1]

I did exactly the same thing. I had XP Pro and purchased the Win7 64 bit upgrade. It does disable the old OS, even on another partition. I just spent all day trying to fix it so I could dual boot because some of my older applications won't run in Win7 64 bit.

Again, even if your old OS is on another partition, installing the Win7 upgrade will disable it!

 

[phexac]

Just installed Win7 on new partition using the ISO trick. Vista works just fine on the old.

 

[pashbe1]

Good for you phexac. I used the "ISO trick" too. But it still disables the old OS on the other partition.

 

[MStele]

If your adament on keeping your old xp install, you image your drive before upgrading and stick that image in a whole somewhere. Now to continue using XP is illegal given the upgrade license, so i'm definetly not advising that. Its convienient because your XP install stays fully viable. If your looking for a quicker way to reinstall Win7 down the road, this is a viable method to do it, since it skips the need to reinstall xp and activate it. Of course, if your making images of XP i would hope your making images of your Win7 install so you don't have to go through these steps in the first place, but eh thats you.