Will this WIN 7 work?

[jmig]

I just purchased a copy of WIN 7 Professional for my Vista Business Dell XPS notebook. Vista never ran a couple of engineering programs I use correctly, so I had a separate notebook that I took on job sites with XP installed. It was stolen along with a bunch of tools in Houston a few weeks ago.

Rather than replace the notebook, I decided to buy WIN 7 and use the XP window to run these programs. Well, the WIN 7 came in today but is says it is an OEM version and should be used on a newly built computer. I don't want to send it back and waste another week or more. Will this version work on my Dell? will it activate?

What is the difference between this one and a plain version, if there is such a thing? I thought I was getting the full version?

[crashalot2]

A call to Microsoft will tell you all you need to know.

[Dangerousdave26]

Where did you purchase it?

It sounds like it is the OEM system builders software. The idea behind it is that it is cheaper because you are building it for a customer and you will be the support for the software to said customer.

That version really is supposed to be accompanied by a purchase of a new hard drive at the very least. At this point I have myself bought so many hard drives from newegg that I don't even think they care if I purchase the OEM software anymore. :icon_lol:

It is no different and XP mode will work fine on it.

I am running W7 Ultimate on my laptop with Xp mode to run some older communications application programs. I only had one install oddity but I got past it rather easily.

Once you load up W7 and completely update it you may want to install those programs into W7 and see if they will run. There was an update that came out lately and normally I would not look at the details but the update was to provide compatibility with quite a few different software products. It just might run under W7 now.

As always my suggestion is load the new OS on a new hard drive that way if it porks you still have all the old data.

[jmig]

Where did you purchase it?

It sounds like it is the OEM system builders software. The idea behind it is that it is cheaper because you are building it for a customer and you will be the support for the software to said customer.

That version really is supposed to be accompanied by a purchase of a new hard drive at the very least. At this point I have myself bought so many hard drives from newegg that I don't even think they care if I purchase the OEM software anymore. :icon_lol:

It is no different and XP mode will work fine on it.

I am running W7 Ultimate on my laptop with Xp mode to run some older communications application programs. I only had one install oddity but I got past it rather easily.

Once you load up W7 and completely update it you may want to install those programs into W7 and see if they will run. There was an update that came out lately and normally I would not look at the details but the update was to provide compatibility with quite a few different software products. It just might run under W7 now.

As always my suggestion is load the new OS on a new hard drive that way if it porks you still have all the old data.

Thanks Dave,

I got it from Zipzoomfly. It didn't say OEM on the ad or the paperwork. But the box does along with about 35 pages of fine print on the cover telling me what will happen to me and my family if I break the seal. What ever happened to witches with poisoned apples? I could deal with them.

I did a search and they had a decent price. Twenty dollars or so lower than Newegg or Amazon, where I buy 90% of my purchases.

I am not worried about support. I won't call Microsoft anyway. I have always been able to find answers online. I just wanted to make sure it will activate.

[Moparmike]

If I understand MS's new strategy on marketing OEM software, they'll only activate it for one hardware setup. Meaning if you buy a new laptop later on and want to migrate that particular Win7 license to the new machine MS might not activate it for the new machine.

Now I don't have any personal experience with this strategy so I'm not sure how 100% accurate the description of their policy is.
As Dave posted, the OEM version is geared more towards system builders who would be providing the OS support instead of their users going straight to MS for OS support issues.

Using an upgrade version of 7 (as opposed to an OEM version), you can still do a clean install.
Read this site for more details
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp
There are also a few other tech sites with the same info too.
I have used the procedure with the Vista upgrade DVD and it works great...I haven't had a chance to try it with any 7 upgrade media yet but it's supposed to work identically.