Windows 7 Professional for Vista Only?

I bought a copy of Windows 7 Professional to load on top of Vista for an already wiped-clean and discarded laptop.

At the top corner of the Box there is message that says - "UPGRADE designed for Windows Vista"

My Question: Can I load this OS to a clean machine? or do I need to have Vista in order for the load to work?

Thanks

 

I don't think you have to install it to a machine that is currently running Vista, but I may be wrong. You might need your Vista key during installation. Several years ago I was under the impression you could even install it to a computer that was running XP, but in that case you HAD to do a clean install . . . you couldn't do an in-place upgrade and keep your old files. You'd think it would be possible to do a clean install of 7 also . . . but again, I'm not 100% sure.

I suggest you check the documentation that came with your copy of Windows 7, and/or check out the Microsoft forums.

 

The more I look into it, it seems you would need to have vista still on the target machine. I again suggest hitting up the Microsoft forums for info on various ways to upgrade to Windows 7 . . .

I know you said the laptop was "wiped clean" but a lot of lappys have a hidden restore partition that could still be there. I'd check the model number of the laptop online and see if it has such a partition, and how to access it. Perhaps you could restore Vista and then install your upgrade?

 

Somehow I must have given the impression I was going to reload the laptop, I am not. I took the laptop to the recycle heap.

I now want to use this copy of W7 on a new desktop I am building. Will the copy I have (as I describe in my original question), load as a standalone OS?

 

I apologise. That is exactly what I thought. Must have skipped right over the "discarded" part.

 

THANKS Laura, that will do the trick!

 

Laura, I will come back and let you know the results.
I am still gathering the machine together.

I needed to know if I needed to buy a copy of W7 or not. Right now, based on what I read, I expect this to work. But, we will see.

Please tell me, how will I find this thread down the road?

 

Before I bought Win 8 I had a Win 7 "Update" which will not install without Vista being pre-installed. I fell into this trap also. I had Vista installed and upgraded to Win 7 with no problem. I then determined to install Win 7 as a standalone on a second machine which it refused to do, it needed Vista installed first.

 

Two different computers,,, but when I installed Vista first Win 7 installed with no problem and the DVDs were the the two that had been installed on the first computer

 

Not exactly the same situation but I have been able to perform a clean install of Win 8 using an upgrade disk. Not only that, but this was to a new partition with Win 7 already installed in its own partition, so I ended up with both Win 7 and Win 8 on the same system and I've been able to do this on two different computers. You just have to select the custom install option - can't remember exactly what it's called - that allows you to choose which partition to install to. Obviously you have to set up suitable primary partitions first.

I can't say how the Windows boot manager would deal with this as I use Easy BCD which enables me to select either 7 or 8 at boot.