Need some Win7 advice

[Okele]

Ok, so the wife has given me the go ahead to upgrade my computer, but with a budget and conditions. Budget isn't an issue as much as the conditions are. The condition of upgrading everyones computers in the house to Windows 7 is. I had planned on doing a minor upgrade to her PC with the CPU from my current computer, so the upgrade for her is fairly simple I think.

I have two other computers I need to upgrade to win7, which I know will need some hardware changes. My current plan is to do a total build on my system minus HDD's, Optical Drive, and GPU. Basically, the mobo, cpu, and ram leaving my current system would be going to my brother, who currently has Vista.

My daughter would be getting my previous parts as I haven't done anything with them, and she is running xp.

My current system has Windows 7 Professional that I bought with my school ID, so it is kind of tied to my current setup. So here's the question: Best Buy currently(as do other retailers,) has the Windows 7 family pack for 129.00. With my current copy, how could I upgrade the other systems to Windows 7 from XP and Vista(my father can't find the product key,) as easily as I can without spending thousands in pc parts?

[xr4man]

it all depends on what hardware they already have. windows 7 can run well on pretty slim resources. for example, my father's laptop is an old hp. it has a 1.4ghz processor and 1g of ram. it runs not to bad. also i used to have 7 installed on my old htpc running a dual core atom processor and 2g of ram. it also ran pretty good. of course neither of those set ups would do well with gaming, but for general usage they work great.

my point being, that you could probably get away with just some ram upgrades if needed.

[x88x]

/\What he said. What are the specs of the other computers? 7 is pretty light on resources, more on level with XP than Vista. You might not even have to change anything.

For context, the lowest system specs I've run 7 on was a VM with 384MB of RAM allocated, running in VirtualBox on top of Ubuntu on an old single-core hyperthreaded Celeron D. It ran ok. Not great, but good enough for what I needed.

[Okele]

The hardware is not really the issue. The issue comes with windows itself. My wife's upgrade won't be a difficult as it is the same architecture, it's the other two that are going to be the issue. Both are intel based and I'll be changing them to amd while mine will go from amd to intel. The issue in the upgrades is in the activation of each system. I know windows has some things in place that make changing hardware an issue where the mobo and CPU are concerned.

My upgrades are going to sandy bridge, which I know is going to cause issues but a call to Microsoft will cure that. Not sure if any of this makes sense, just looking for a legal and simple way to upgrade these computers without breaking the bank on win7 and brand new hardware.

[x88x]

Just do the upgrades before activating the new Windows installs.

[xr4man]

^^^^yeah.

[Okele]

So install windows 7, avoid activation, install hardware, reinstall windows, activate? What do I do about vista which I don't think I have the product key for? Is there a place in vista where I could find iy within vista?

[xr4man]

you're almost right.

do the upgrades, restart with win 7, tell it to either upgrade or to do a fresh install.

you don't need your product key for vista. or for xp for that matter.

you can do an upgrade from vista, but you will have to do a fresh install for xp. personally, i would do a fresh install for vista too. the upgrade version of win7 can do either.

of course, be sure to back up files before doing anything.

it's all very easy actually.

[x88x]

So install windows 7, avoid activation, install hardware, reinstall windows, activate?

Not quite. My recommendation:

1) Prepare PC (back up any data, etc).
2) Shut down.
3) Install new hardware.
4) Install Windows 7.
5) Activate.

Or, if you really want to do an upgrade on the Vista install instead of a fresh install (like xr4 mentioned, you don't have a choice with XP), add in:

3.5) Boot to Vista with new hardware (don't bother installing new drivers; let 7 worry about that).

What do I do about vista which I don't think I have the product key for? Is there a place in vista where I could find iy within vista?

You won't need the Vista license to upgrade to 7, but if you want to use the license on another system, use this tool:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html
Just run it on the system you need to know the license key for (or, in the 'Windows' directory if the drive is mounted on a different system not booted from it), and it'll tell you the key.

personally, i would do a fresh install for vista too. the upgrade version of win7 can do either.

Agreed. However, doing a fresh install with an upgrade license requires a tiny bit of footwork. Just do a fresh install without putting in a license key, then run updates, then run the 'upgrade' from the CD and give it your license key. Easy peasy, and saves you ~$200/license.

[SXRguyinMA]

Agreed. However, doing a fresh install with an upgrade license requires a tiny bit of footwork. Just do a fresh install without putting in a license key, then run updates, then run the 'upgrade' from the CD and give it your license key. Easy peasy, and saves you ~$200/license.

Not true. I did a fresh install over an XP installation with Win 7 Home upgrade, and didn't have to do any fancy footwork. Just installed and activated as per normal