OSY Discussion Forum

I installed Ultimate via download and have been using it for a month; works great, I like it, can do what I want. I'm a happy camper.

My DVD arrived and it won't accept the key; Not Valid!

This had me pissed off for an hour and then it dawned on me ... my DVD key is professional and my install is Ultimate. Fuck.

How do I pay the difference and make my install valid? I really have no desire to re-install the whole damned thing all over again, it's working great.

Microsoft needs an online key upgrade thing where you can put in your current key and pay $$ and get an upgraded key.

You might be able to attemp a "repair" with your Professional version (boot from it and choose to repair the existing installation - I think that's still an option).

We've done that a few times with Server 2003 installations, for example to "convert" them from an OEM license to a retail or open license version that the customer purchased. We do this in combination with P2V migrations to new hardware, where the OEM version won't reactivate because it knows it's no longer on it's manufacturer's hardware.

If that doesn't work, or the option is unavailable (sorry I haven't tried it myself), then use the Windows Easy Transfer Wizard to removable media or a network location, blast your machine and then restore your files and settings.

I'll try both; I'm leary of any wizard ... I almost want to do a complete re-install as it would make me feel better but on the other hand re-installing is a pain in the ass.

Not from the OS part, mind you; Windows 7 was clearly the easiest version yet. It's the programs I use. I loathe having to install and configure them all again.

I used the Fast Wizard to take me from the Windows 7 Beta to the Windows 7 RC - there was an upgrade path but it wasn't really a valid upgrade scenario, so I rebuilt. It worked fine.

I did a clean install between the RC and the RTM version, both at home and on my laptop at work.

Get a goat.

Sacrifice it over a fire that has been seasonsed with Poultry Seasonsing, Sage, Thyme, and marshmallows.

Then suck Satans Dick.


After that, just wipe and reinstall, cause it'll be shorter, and hurt your ansu less.

Yes, fresh install is the one true way. Also, never upgrade Vista. Ever.

Oh god, I have all of this fucking software installed ...

Time to backup my shit

I ended up using the wizard to 'move users' and stored it on my external drive. Install of Pro went really quick and I then imported everyone. I used some online 'install a bundle of software' thing that worked really well and was back in shape within a few hours.

It was all relatively painless, actually. I'm surprised and pleased.

That's been my experience with the Windows 7 transfer wizard as well. I used it to convert 10 XP machines to 10 Windows 7 machines for a customer of mine. The only thing it doesn't grab by default that I wanted was a few Outlook files (the .nk2 and any archive.pst files). But you can click into advanced and select that stuff anyway on the source machine.

That transfer wizard works great. I use it all the time to transition non-domain accounts into domain accounts and what not. The only thing it tends to not handle is pretty much any third party application that has data stored in the user profile (i.e. Firefox, Winamp) but those are easily handled by copying their folders out of the old user profile into the new.

Using the Easy Transfer Wizard has sped up my machine/account migrations out the yin yang. It may not be perfect but in an all Microsoft environment it is usually good enough and otherwise it can still speed up the process a great deal as long as you keep a manual backup of the profile too for things it will miss.

During the wizard on the "old computer", after the user account scan is done, click on the "Customized" link under any of the accounts, then click on "Advanced". From there you'll see a browse window of all the local drives you can select or deselect anything you want. So while it's true that the wizard may not choose things you want by default, you can go pick them if you know where they are. I've found from experience that it picks a bunch of stuff I don't want, but missed stuff I do want, like I mentioned in my previous post.

Ninite!

That was the website that bundled the apps together and then installed them!

Wow that's a nice tool!