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Windows 7 Upgrade Workaround a 'Hack'?

Doug is out for today, but will be back for Friday's edition. Meanwhile, helping fill in for him today is Online News Editor Kurt Mackie.

Microsoft rolled out its latest OS last month during a profound world economic downturn. The word "consumer" may finally disappear from the U.S. lexicon as credit-busted, increasingly jobless Americans hunker down, saving perhaps a few lumps of coal for the approaching winter.

Though consumers actually bolstered Vista sales when it was first introduced in late 2006, Vista's poor driver support early on, as well as its additional hardware requirements, steered many IT pros away from upgrading. In fact, IT pros showed such a resolute rejection of Vista that about 80 percent of commercial PCs still use XP, according to a Forrester Research third-quarter report.

Even the ebullient Steve Ballmer wasn't particularly optimistic about current IT spending prospects. He told reporters in South Korea on Monday that while the economy may see some growth, there will be no "recovery." He also acknowledged tight budgets for IT departments.

Given all of that, Microsoft has priced a full version of Windows 7 Professional at $299, according to the Microsoft Store (it's $18 cheaper at Amazon.com). However, if you have a copy of XP or Vista licensed to run on a particular PC and you want to upgrade that same machine to Windows 7, the upgrade version of Windows 7 Professional costs $100 less.

"Necessity is the mother of invention," it's said. Some people are eyeing that $100 "discount" by trying to use Windows 7 upgrade media to perform clean installs. This Windows 7 upgrade "hack," which could cut into Microsoft's Windows revenues, elicited a reaction from the company: The hack apparently can work, according to Microsoft, but the resulting installation is illegal per Microsoft's end user license agreement.

The illegalness of this Windows 7 upgrade hack was emphasized by Eric Ligman, a global partner experience lead at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, in a Microsoft blog. A reader of that blog shot back, saying, "Why wouldn't Microsoft make a gesture of good faith by rewarding savvy computer users who can pull off the hack with this $80-$100 discount? It sounds like good PR to me, but I am just a savvy computer user, not a PR guy."

Of course, those IT pros who deal with Microsoft's volume licensing policies will likely submit meekly to them rather than try any sort of hack. It's the consumers, that vanishing breed, that will still fight back against a Microsoft policy that compels them to associate the OS license with their aging PC hardware. For them, upgrade pricing and full-edition pricing just seem designed to give Microsoft's profits an arbitrary boost.

Should Microsoft give consumer users a break? And have any of you actually tried the upgrade hack? Answers welcome at dbarney@redmondmag.com.

Posted by Kurt Mackie on November 04, 2009 at 1:56 PM


Reader Comments

Tue, Nov 17, 2009

Years ago this would have been classed as profiteering, yes ok all companies have to make a profit, but come on, microsoft makes so much money it could afford to drop its prices by half, or more. if they did i would upgrade all my pc,s i have 4 pc,s and 2 laptops, at home. as it is i wont upgrade at all, i wont be ripped off.

Sat, Nov 14, 2009 Chris

Here is what Microsoft should be doing to stay relevant in a a mature computer industry where competing operating systems such as Linux are readily available. They should make the "Home Edition" of Windows available to consumers for free. That's right - FREE. Download for $0, click right here. Free. No charge. No catch. Free. Microsoft makes all their money on corporate licensing - they can offer the "Corporate Edition" of windows for the standard licensing fees that businesses already pay with capabilities such as the ability to join domains and so on. Who would bother to pirate Windows? Who would even care? They could save millions on product activation enforcement and focus on making sure that corporations pay their proper fees.

Fri, Nov 6, 2009

The point is you cannot do a clean install with the upgrade license. Who buys PC hardware without Windows unless you're a hardcore Linux user, then I doubt that you would buy Windows anyway. This is either Microsoft protectionism or a way to screw people out of more money; or both. And for the true minority that do not have a license and buy Windows 7 upgrade and hack it into a full install, at least you got some money out of them. Most of us that preordered were lead to believe differently.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009 Rubén Colombia

Linux is better, is more faster and has more virtual desktops and is beautifull... at $0, GNU/Linux is free.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009

Reminds me of an old joke: A man asks a woman if she would go to bed with him for 1 million dollars; she says yes. Then he asks if she would for 1 dollar and she said "What kind of person do you think I am?" He responds with, we already established that, we are just negotiating the price.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009 timtiminhouston Houston, TX

To begin with, MS is charging too much. They have gotten so used to charging whatever they want for so long that they are basically forcing people to look for alternatives. Most of my customers will not consider linux or Mac, so they are staying put with xp or vista. On the other hand, I see an increasing trend towards small businesses willing to use hacks/work arounds even if it means they can get sued; in Texas they will simply change their name and continue on since you can't collect most assets. If you are a SMB with 10-30 computers the cost of upgrading is the same as the salary for 1-2 people; so you either work with what you have or let someone go. This is not a normal recession and MS needs to adjust. Furthermore- I have had my first ever Linux job recently; a customer that had 14 old computers running win2000 just got tired of having me over there to remove viruses or reformat. He didn't have the money to upgrade (he has already put all but two of his 20 employees on half time and dropped their benefits so he wouldn't have to let them go). I am not a linux sales person and I am MCP/MCDST, so I always prefer a MS solution because that is what I trained in. He asked me specifically how much it would cost for him to install linux on his machines. I gave an 8-10 hr quete because I don't know the equivalent of Sysprep for linux. It wound up taking 7 hrs. and he decided to leave two of them as is. What I learned is despite the employees initial reaction it worked out quite well. Before those machines were horrendous; now they are actually decent. I only have had return twice in the last two months (printer and network share issues) wereas before I was there 2-3 times a week I would say it has worked out. I am not saying all of my customers are going to go to linux (some are true technophobes) but with the advent of Open Office MS has a genuine threat on the horizon. And to make matters worse, MS is alienating many of it's long time allies by opening MS Stores! Now the computer makers have a new threat to deal with and you can bet they will be looking to hedge their bets. That said, MS should be proactive and lower the price of win7 accross the board by 50% or more. If they don't they will see an exodus of people leaving not because they want to but because they have to.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009

I bought 3 upgrade copies for computer that had previous versions of windows on them (2 Vista 1 XP X64). I was able to do fresh clean installs with the upgrade media on all systems and it allowed me to activate it without any problems, and I didn't have to do any hack. I have read that this may not be the case with everyone though.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009 Ron Georgia

MS has let people upgrade from one version to another with a 'Clean Install' because the install works better. They had issues with a few versions and recommended the clean install as long as you had the original media from the previous version. I am in no way encouraging piracy but building stable system is a must. Some people will always take advantage of a legitimate useful tool.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009 Scott Texas

This "Hack" has worked on versions of Windows going all the way back to Windows 95 "Upgrade" from Windows 3.1.

Thu, Nov 5, 2009 Frugal CT Yankee

If, 5 years ago I bought a pc with WindowsXP, or I bought a copy of WindowsXP, I own a license for XP. By now the pc may have died, or I decide to retire it. If today I bought a pc with NO OS, could I legally TRANSFER the old WindowsXP license to this new pc? Now the new pc is legally running XP, and would I then be within the license to install Windows7 ??

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 Haggy United States

When Windows 7 first became available, I could have gotten the Professional upgrade for $99. It was a huge mistake on my part that I didn't do it. Now I am buying zero copies. There are features missing from Home Premium, but there are third party products to make up for them.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 Haggy United States

Would those people buy it if it were $100 more, or would they wait for a hack of something else? Microsoft let me get Home Premium upgrades for $49.99 when they first released it. I bought three copies right away. If it had been $100 each, I would have decided that not all computers at home need upgrading. If I bought a single copy and later found out how to put it on the other two PCs, would I do it? It's completely irrelevant. Either way, Microsoft wouldn't make or lose more money. I'm sick of software companies that multiply the retail price of their software by the number of illegal copies and claim that they are losing that amount. They have to account for the huge percentage who would not have bought it in the first place at its price. More importantly, if Bob uses a pirated copy of software he would never have paid for, he might copy it from Tom. But it could be that Tom thought it was too expensive and bought it only because Bob let him copy last year's version. If copying had been impossible, the vendor would have lost two sales, not gained two. They would also have lost two users. Instead of assuming that every single user with an illegal copy would have paid for one if it had been impossible to get an illegal one, vendors should ask how many of their customers would not have bought their product if they had not been able to put it on all 5 computers in their home despite what the license says. I'm not saying I would put illegal copies of an office suite on all of my computers at home. I am saying that I would not pay $1500 so that they all have the latest version. I don't advocate illegal copying, but I might pay the $300 if it were legal to put the hypothetical software on my five home computers. The alternative is to pay nothing, or to upgrade a single computer. That's far less enticing, so the vendor has a lower chance of getting my money.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 Chas USA

Microsoft should charged as much as they can to show other OS makers that it pays to ignore their customers and only look at the bottom line. Vista was a big hit.

Wed, Nov 4, 2009 Vic Australia

There are no free lunches. Why should Microsoft work for nothing? If people go to work and are not paid at the end of the week or fortnight and asked to come back again next week and do the same - Would they? Credit to Microsoft for 1)Continuing to develop and sell cutting edge O/S and products. 2) For not laying the boot in more often when they could. Also the IT industry needs to get it's act together an not publicize workarounds of this kind as it has done on a number of websites recently. No wonder it is doing so poorly at present.

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