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if i have a pirated version of Vista Premium, can i upgrade with a legit copy of windows 7? and does it have to be Win7 Premium, or can it be home basic?

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This question is similar to superuser.com/questions/60688/… – ricbax Oct 31 at 18:58

4 Answers

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A pirated version of Windows Vista does not make you eligible for ANY Windows 7 upgrade.

the decent thing to do is to buy a retail copy of Windows 7.

superuser.com is not the right place to ask for help with cheating on licensing issues.

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I don't think the OP is asking if he can use an upgrade license, but just if he can install Windows 7 on top. – ChrisF Oct 31 at 21:24
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Home Basic isn't available any more, You will need to go to Home Premium or Ultimate.

Whilst I think technically you can upgrade because it will detect a Windows Vista edition, it is not the right thing to do.

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you can do a clean install of W7.

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this is what i plan on doing, but all my files on vista will be gone, right? – Ricardo Angeles Oct 31 at 19:07
@Ricardo: You should have a backup. If you don't, buy an external hard drive (that's at least as big as your main hard drive), do a full backup, wipe the main drive, do a clean install of W7, then restore your data files from the backup. Sometime in your life (or more likely, the next few years), your hard drive will die or you'll get a virus or a variety of other bad things will happen and you'll lose all your data if you don't have a backup. – Mr Fooz Oct 31 at 21:23
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@Ricardo: No, they will be placed in a folder called Windows.old. You'll just have to reinstall all of your applications. – musicfreak Oct 31 at 21:23
@Ricardo - your data should exists outside of the files & folders being replaced by the new install. In any case it would be sensible to back up your data before doing a upgrade, even if you had a legitimate copy of Vista to upgrade from. – ChrisF Oct 31 at 21:26
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I had a copy of Windows Vista home premium.which I never used, never installed. I installed it so I would be able to update to 7 while keeping all my files email etc.

My 7 is professional. You can install vista as an upgrade to xp without s/n or activation since you get 30 days to activate it before it crashes. I then went to install 7 professional and found you cannot install 7 profession from vista home basic. They must be the same level.

So I ended up restoring my xp professional and have spent the last few days bringing back all my programs. Unfortunately I lost my store of emails, my calender and my addressbook. But those are easy enough to get by. All my files from before were backed up using Acronis so they are all still there for me.

The only problem I have is my sound doesn't work yet. Thuis seems to be a problem faced by a lot of folks who have upgraded to 7.

Regards

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same old story ... no matter how hard the developers try to make the upgrade process a painless experience, i still can't see the convenience outweigh the risks of carrying over unwanted baggage/leftovers from the obsolete OS. backup your data (which is highly recommended to do anyway), install the new OS from scratch and do away with the worries and hickups. akthough i do honor and respect their efforts, they're wasting their precious time on me. :) – Molly Nov 1 at 18:16

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