I've been playing with Win7 RC Build 7100 since it came out. So far, with the exception of driver problem, it seems to be better than XP SP3. Will it be possible to upgrade RC Build 7100 to the retail package?Fr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations.

LilBro,No. You would have to have a clean install.

LilBro - To clarify what dwolters said - you CAN use upgrade media to "upgrade" but it would have to do a clean install. XP itself would need to be blown out by the upgrade procedure. How it'll work:1.) You boot into XP as ususal. 2.) Insert the Win 7 Upgrade DVD into your optical drive.3.) Click on "Install Now" 4.) The installer will check the OS, will find it's running XP, and will tell you your only option is a clean install. 5.) The machine will reboot and the setup procedure will then continue from there.

The PC I'm using only has Win7 RC Build 7100 on it. Couldn't think of a better way to test it than on a new machine never loaded before. I can't afford to put Win7 on my laptop and desktop. You know, the laptop Gateway & Microsoft said was suitable for Vista Home Premium. NOT. Anyway, can one upgrade from RC Build 7100 to the real McCoy, Luke?Fr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations.

Nope. Clean as the driven snow. Burned Win7 RC to a DVD and booted from the DVD. Loaded straight onto a never used disc.Fr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations.

An upgrade is an upgrade, you need a previous "upgradable" version of Windows for it. 7 RC is an "evaluation version" and doesn't enable you to an upgrade. If we're speaking of legit ways, your only choice is to buy a "full version". But I don't know if that's the problem - if your Gateway laptop came with either XP or Vista Home Premium, just install one of these before upgrading, and you're done.Mobile AMD64 3000+, VIA Apollo K8T800 chipset, 1 G RAM, ATIRadeonMobility 9700, 20x DVDRW, C:XPSP3 (55G),D:WIN7 (25G),F:DATA (250G)

As I recall, if you want to upgrade cleanly; previousMS OS upgrades asked you to insert the disc from a previousOSin order to verify that you meet the upgrade qualifications. Hopefully W7 will work the same way. I have always done clean installs from an upgrade disc with the exception of my current computer which came with Vista Premium already installed. I had the W7 Beta installed (via upgrade) and now have the RC candidate installed. I have also pre-ordered the "Premium Version".An interesting finding (to me at least): my laptop has a 15" screen. I had W7 installed on it as well, but I found my cursor kept drifting either to the task bar creating unwantedpop-upsor the right hand corner and blanking out any open windows, so I've reverted and intend to stay with Vista on this machine. May be just me, but I would be interested in knowing if anyone else had this experience.RegardsJim McColl

I did the same thing as LilBro except on a VirtualBox machine, it is the regular RC install disk .iso install. (VBox can use a .iso as a regular CD) If I want to buy the Windows 7 with the pre-buy thing, do I need the upgrade or the full install disk? I have Windows 7 Ultimate build 7100

Upgrading freeware isn't supported.

So in other words if I have Windows 7 RC I will need the full install version NOT the upgrade, when the RC runs out and I need to have a OS

So in other words if I have Windows 7 RC I will need the full install version NOT the upgrade, when the RC runs out and I need to have a OS I could not have said it better myself. The reason is Windows 7 RC is still for testing and development and not yet approved for sale. Upgrading on top of software meant for testing purposes could lead to problems.

mtcyler - It all depends on how you plan on installing Windows 7... If you're going to upgrade a copy of XP or Vista - then the upgrade is a viable solution. If you're not, then you'll be wanting the full version. Keep in mind that the RC can not be upgraded mainly for two simple reasons:1.) You've got Ultimate now - and will likely be wanting Home Premium or Professional (which are part of the preorder special) and you can't downgrade from Ultimate to either of those versions. You can only go from Home Premium to Professional or Ultimate or you can upgrade fromProfessional to Ultimate.2.) You don't want any leftover bits from the RC clogging things up with the final version. Doing so can cause problems for you down the road that Microsoft will probably not be trying to find a fix for. Your best bet is generally always a clean install.

I've been playing with Win7 RC Build 7100 since it came out. So far, with the exception of driver problem, it seems to be better than XP SP3. Will it be possible to upgrade RC Build 7100 to the retail package?Fr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations. So you are asking if you can "upgrade" from the testing version of win7 to the full buyed version, right? Well if this helps: I was testing Build 7000 and than wanted to "upgrade" to RC1 (Build 7100). Well after starting the DVD setup within my Build 7000 the setup told me that I can not just upgrade win7 beta but should find a solution on a link at MS: where a developer, i guess, had written an article about this saying, we could cheat us around the version problem by changing the version number in the file sources\cversion.ini on the iso file. To do that of course you have to be able to write the file so you have to copy the hole DVD content to a USB stick or your harddrive first. Well I hope too that there will be a easy way to "upgrade" to the full buyed version later on, cause I have been gone productive on win7 allready... ;)

Ralph - While it's possible that someone might come up with a workaround of some sort that would make it possible to upgrade to the final RTM bits, there are a couple of problems. 1.) You're currently testing Windows 7 Ultimate. Most likely, you will be purchasing Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional. There is NO means to "downgrade" from Ultimate to Home Premium, Professional or any of the other editions of Windows 7. The only way to get rid of stuff you wouldn't install would be - a clean install. 2.) When Microsoft released the RC and those notes that explained how to do an upgrade from Build 7000 to 7100, they also warned there would be glitches, issues, and other problems that they would NOT be doing anything about. The real question is - would you rather put up with those bits of weirdness that could cause serious problems or cause you to lose data - OR - just do it right the first time by backing up your data and blowing things out and doing a proper reinstall?