[K.L.Devine]

Over the past several days there have been various posts, etc. across a variety of social media engines stating that some “hack” (be it a person or a procedure) shows that a Windows 7 Upgrade disc can perform a “clean” installation of Windows 7 on a blank drive from a technical perspective.

Eric Ligman from Microsoft posted in his blog that, they often forgot to mention a very basic, yet very important piece of information… “Technically possible” does not always mean legal.

Here are some very basic facts:

• When you purchase software, you are purchasing the rights to run the software according to the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA) that comes with that software.
  
• When you install that software, you are agreeing to the terms included in the EULA you purchased.
  a. For instance, in the Windows 7 EULA it states, “By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, return it to the retailer for a refund or credit.”
  
• When you purchase an Upgrade license, the included EULA states that you must already own a qualifying full license to upgrade from in order to use the Upgrade license, hence the term “Upgrade.”
  a. For instance, in the Windows 7 EULA it states, “To use upgrade software, you must first be licensed for the software that is eligible for the upgrade.”

Here is a graphical representation of what this means:



It's clear that Eric Ligman is targeting Paul Thurrott who posted a guide on Installing Windows 7 with Upgrade Media.

Source: MSDN Blog

[PurplePeopleEater]

oh no, MS didn't put the locks on the upgrade disks like they said they were. I guess they trusted the customers and we let them down, but seriously who in the right mind would use the upgrade feature?

[Frylock86]

This is sticky. Using it on a blank HDD may be illegal, but it is there for a reason. Microsoft damn well knew there would be those who take advantage of that loophole. Shame on them for thinking otherwise.


However, do not let Microsoft tell you you cannot perform a clean install on a qualifying machine. If you already have an activated copy of windows XP or Vista, you qualify for an upgrade, and YOU MAY perform a clean install instead of upgrading.

[CommonSense]

Frylock86, on 02 November 2009 - 04:08 PM, said:

This is sticky. Using it on a blank HDD may be illegal, but it is there for a reason. Microsoft damn well knew there would be those who take advantage of that loophole. Shame on them for thinking otherwise.


However, do not let Microsoft tell you you cannot perform a clean install on a qualifying machine. If you already have an activated copy of windows XP or Vista, you qualify for an upgrade, and YOU MAY perform a clean install instead of upgrading.

Yeah. Just boot the DVD, format the hard drives and install. But wouldn't that count as not having an OS... whoops my bad.

[Frylock86]

CommonSense, on 02 November 2009 - 05:21 PM, said:

Frylock86, on 02 November 2009 - 04:08 PM, said:

This is sticky. Using it on a blank HDD may be illegal, but it is there for a reason. Microsoft damn well knew there would be those who take advantage of that loophole. Shame on them for thinking otherwise.


However, do not let Microsoft tell you you cannot perform a clean install on a qualifying machine. If you already have an activated copy of windows XP or Vista, you qualify for an upgrade, and YOU MAY perform a clean install instead of upgrading.

Yeah. Just boot the DVD, format the hard drives and install. But wouldn't that count as not having an OS... whoops my bad.

nope, it counts.

[PurplePeopleEater]

Frylock86, on 02 November 2009 - 04:59 PM, said:

CommonSense, on 02 November 2009 - 05:21 PM, said:

Frylock86, on 02 November 2009 - 04:08 PM, said:

This is sticky. Using it on a blank HDD may be illegal, but it is there for a reason. Microsoft damn well knew there would be those who take advantage of that loophole. Shame on them for thinking otherwise.


However, do not let Microsoft tell you you cannot perform a clean install on a qualifying machine. If you already have an activated copy of windows XP or Vista, you qualify for an upgrade, and YOU MAY perform a clean install instead of upgrading.

Yeah. Just boot the DVD, format the hard drives and install. But wouldn't that count as not having an OS... whoops my bad.

nope, it counts.

Yea I dont see why not, and anyone could fit into the loophole by installing linux or some other free OS

unless the EULA directly states an upgrade from XP or Vista to 7.
However, after re reading the first post I did come to realise that clean installs aren't illegal if it's on a computer with windows alread installed so this rule isn't even that bad. However, MS does have to expect that if there isn't a lock preventing people otherwise they will infact take advantage of this because the upgrad disk is cheaper.

[ayoshi]

Oh no!

[Villain]

reminds me of the old Win98 method ... get a win98 upgrade CD, put it in and boot from it, tell it to do the upgrade, it will look for another prior copy of Windows (be it 95 or 3.1), so you put in the floppy or CD of the prior OS, it reads some files, then asks for the upgrade CD, and does a full install for you.

To be sure MS did not leave in that method. it is an obvious pirating call, because you could just use Win3.1's floppys (if you had a copy, and trust me, 5-7 floppys = easier to pirate that a cd, or it was back then), it read in some files from floppy's 1,2,3 and 5, then asked for the 98 upgrade cd, and Bam! free, modern OS.

[The Flashing Fish]

PurplePeopleEater, on 02 November 2009 - 06:46 PM, said:

Yea I dont see why not, and anyone could fit into the loophole by installing linux or some other free OS

The license does not state that there needs to be any existing OS.

From the post, "To use upgrade software, you must first be licensed for the software that is eligible for the upgrade." That is straight from the EULA. While you may have a license for Ubuntu, it is not eligible for the upgrade.

Either way, the EULA isn't law, and it's validity under contract law is often found to be very weak.

[USG Ishimura]

I think most of the users here won't care if it's legal or not. The important is that it's cheaper and can be activated!