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Sober IT truths from the island-state

by Michael Tan, Singapore

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A bummer of a deal installing Windows 7 on my ThinkPad X61

Oct 22, 2009 14:44

Well, I bought my copy of Windows 7, basically a move from being black to gray, legal-wise. Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Haha, I thought, why would anybody buy a 32-bit version? Morons...

Well, my first project was to upgrade my Vista 32-bit ThinkPad X61 to Win 7 64-bit. No DVD drive with the system. So I took a USB flash drive and prepared it to boot, so I could boot from the USB drive. Then I copied the entire Windows 7 DVD onto it, a 3GB copy.

In the meantime, I updated the Bios of the X61 to support Win 7.

Ready? Booted from USB drive, selected update... no go. It told me to boot from my X61 and run setup from there. And I did that. It told me that my Vista Pro 32-bit OS does not support the 64-bit setup program.

I searched, and the Net agreed that I would need to do a fresh install.

So, now I've got the blue balls and am eating my hahas...

Summary of Windows 7 installation discs, licenses, bits, etc.
Something I found out in my frustrations:

License keys are supposed to be interchangeable between "bits". E.g. a 64-bit license key can be used for installing 32-bit. Source.

Whether you have Home, Professional or Ultimate depends on the license key.

Retail DVDs have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions inside, of all versions of Windows 7. However, you have to delete the ei.cfg file in order to make it an "all versions" DVD. For OEM discs, it is yet unknown. I'm trying it now. Source

Theoretically, if one torrents a retail Windows 7 DVD, you'd be able to install ANY version of 32-bit or 64-bit, depending on your product key, if you delete the ei.cfg file.

Nice to know... now to see whether I can solve my problem with my legal key. Now, where's the ISO RTM Win 7 torrent?

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michaeltan

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michaeltan says...
well I found a copy of 32bit Windows 7 Pro, and used my 64 bit product key and it worked as expected.

but Windows 7 still subjectively feels as slow or as fast as Winxp, plus they screwed around my desktop by enforcing the Win Vista crap interface for the start button, took out the colors from my `notification area' icons... disabled my Fn+F7 projector selector key ....

Overall I SHOULD NOT have upgraded to Windows 7 32bit.

Oct 23, 2009 09:48

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About Michael Tan

Michael Tan is lucky enough not to have to choose between his job and his passion. He is the responsible for all aspects of developing new businesses and sourcing new productlines for a regional IT distribution company. He also oversees the company's legal affairs as General Counsel. In real life, he is a technology enthusiast, from both the fun and business viewpoint. The only choices he has to make are whether to play with his astro telescopes, his PC games, his Wii console, hit the track, tweak his car, or refine his biofilters, post his blogs, research for a new digicam, scour every forum to feed his habit further, play with his son… You can reach Michael at michaeltanyk@gmail.com ALL BLOGPOSTS ONLY REFLECT MICHAEL'S OPINIONS AND NOBODY ELSES'.