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I've recently put together a new PC, and at the time decided it would be a good idea to buy Vista64 home premium as it came with a "free win7 upgrade"

I've sent off for the upgrade now, but does this mean if win7 doesn't work for me, that I can't go back to vista? Does the upgrade then invalidate the vista serial key? Or are Microsoft nice enough to let you continue to use both?

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It doesn't invalidate the serial for Vista, it just upgrades the OS. You can reinstall Vista later if you'd like.

Note that the upgrade product key for Win 7 will only work as an upgrade though. You can't do a fresh install with an upgrade disc without having the physical media for a qualifying version of Windows. If you have one of those large recovery sets like Sony is notorious for making, or if you have a built in hard drive recovery like Dell has and didn't spring for the actual media you can't do a clean install.

With Vista (and I assume this still applies to 7 as well) you could install Vista without putting in a product key, allowing for a fresh install. Then do an in-place upgrade from fresh Vista to fresh Vista. This will give you a clean install of Vista without having previous media available.

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  • Wouldn't the upgrade install (trying to do a fresh install with it) just ask you to insert the older OS disk as proof of ownership? That's how older upgrades worked anyway - I haven't done this in years. Just curious... Oct 21, 2009 at 12:03
  • Has Microsoft changed its upgrade mechanism for Vista? To do a fresh install with previous upgrade OSs, Microsoft just makes you either put the previous OS's install CD/DVD in the drive and/or requires you to type in its CD Key.
    – Mr Fooz
    Oct 21, 2009 at 12:03
  • I was under the impression that you needed to do a fresh install of win7 for this process, otherwise if you ever need to re-install for some reason you would have to put on vista, then upgrade to win7, that would be far too much effort, surely they won't force us to do this!
    – user155695
    Oct 21, 2009 at 12:21
  • Edited for clarity.
    – MDMarra
    Oct 21, 2009 at 12:38

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