Windows 7 upgrade question

[Harsky]

3 years ago, I bought a laptop that came preinstalled with Vista and last year, I was browsing a website and found a sale that offered Windows 7 Ultimate upgrade disk at a low price which I immediately bought and installed without problem.

Now I'm on the hunt for a new laptop and almost ALL of them offer Windows 7 Home Premium. Is there a way to transfer the license of my current W7 Ultimate to a new laptop so I can continue using it or am I doomed to buying another one? I know piracy is another option but W7 really was a one off purchase I'm happy with.

 

[doyama]

Depends do you want to use 2 laptops? If so then you'd have to buy another license.

If you intent to totally retire the old laptop, then you can transfer the license. However the install disc probably won't let you install it directly. You might have to wipe the existing install, install XP or Vista, then perform the upgrade.

Also why do you want Ultimate anyways? Realistically most people won't need the features in Ultimate. You should really think about whether you need Ultimate or not. What functionality is only available in Ulitmate that you need?

The only reason I say so is that your Home Premium license is likely an OEM one. Thus is NOT easily transferable to another system, since the key is coded to a specific manufacturer. If the activation does not see an HP/Dell/etc system then the key fails. Your upgrade key is transferable so I would really save that for a situation where it's valuable. Home Premium is good enough for most home users. And most other Ulitimate feature can be replaced with 3rd party apps with very few exceptions.

 

[Dilzi]

I agree with Doyama. I bought Windows 7 Ultimate for more than Home Premium and I have not used a single one of the extra features. And I've been trying to.

But if you bought Ultimate, you should have the install disc/iso and the product key. Simply install that and it should be all fine.

 

[niknetniko]

I don't think this is the right forum to ask someting about your PC ;-)

 

[Pavichokche]

Well you can always get a new laptop (with Home Premium) and install Ultimate from your disk, using the same key. There may be some confusion with the automatic updates (since that key is already registered on another computer) but it will still work.

If you want to avoid that confusion, you can bring your old laptop back to Home Premium by using the key it came with (found on the greenish sticker on its bottom) and then install Ultimate on the new one.

That all is a lot of work for almost no difference. I would suggest getting a new latop, selling the old one and selling the W7 Ultimate disk.

 

[Harsky]

So basically, it's still okay to use the old W7 upgrade disc on the new laptop as long as I delete/format the old laptop?

 

[Pavichokche]

To be honest, I don't know. I'm positive that it will work to the extent that the key will be accepted during the installation. I imagine that the worst case scenario will be similar to what happened to me in the past with XP. That is, the automatic windows updates will not work for you because the version of windows that you're using is already registered to another machine. However, that shouldn't worry you. All the updates you need come in Service Packs, and so far there is one for windows 7 that you can download. And the ones after that, well I'm sure there's nothing too important in there.

But as someone already mentioned, windows 7 ultimate is barely better than home premium. The only notable feature (that I know of) that it boasts over home premium is the ability to emulate windows without third party software. But that's not a big deal.

 

[adamdbz]

You can image/clone your old laptop’s hdd and install the image on the new laptop you will have exactly 1:1 your old laptop hdd all your files and programs and win 7 ultimate
If you need more help [email protected]
That’s my email.