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Windows 7 Clean Install Only In Europe
jbeale53 writes "It seems that to install Windows 7 in Europe, you'll have to wipe the system and start over. There will be no ability to upgrade. From the article, 'The unfortunate side effect has been caused by Microsoft's decision to avoid any further EU censure on Windows 7 by removing Internet Explorer 8 from the OS. Because Internet Explorer is so deeply integrated within Vista, it's not currently possible to perform an upgrade that removes IE.' Why would Microsoft cripple it this way? Just to try and point fingers at the European Union? Because the EU didn't tell them to remove IE, they only told them to offer other browsers to be installed during setup."
Just to add to this... I've upgraded 2 machines from Vista 64 Ultimate to Windows 7 RC (both of them FAR from clean installs - one was 2 years old with a few hundred gig of games and other crap on it, the other was a work machine with a year worth of junk on it) and they both went pretty well. The only thing i had to do was do a repair of VMware workstation, as Windows 7's installer clobbered the network devices.
I figured "why not, I may as well see how it goes" as I'd need to do a reinstall anyway (and all the shit i care about is on a separate disk) if i wanted to do a clean install... but i was pleasantly surprised at how painless the upgrade was. ESPECIALLY considering it was only the RC...
I agree, you'd be dumb to *rely* on an upgrade to work and not be prepared to reinstall, but so far I've been happy with not doing it, using the RC.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
how do I go and download FireFox?
I guess I'm just dumb, then.
I've run the same windows system with just OS upgrades (95-2000-XP Pro), no fresh installs, for about 12 years now. That's around 6-7 MB/CPU/Ram/HD/Video hardware upgrade cycles, since I always build my own and tend to upgrade pieces most of the time. I still have the original Win 95 install files in a sub-directory on my hard drive.
I'm currently running a dual-core with 2 GB of ram and a RAID 1/0 hard drive config (4 drives), so maybe that's it (although hardly unusual in today's market), but my computer seems much faster to me than any other computer I've worked on in the last few years, even brand-new computers with "fresh" installs.
I have 200+ applications installed, many of which are old enough that I'd never find the install media again, if I ever did a fresh install (packed away in some box somewhere, I suppose, since I've moved 4 times in the last 12 years).
Of course, I've also never bought into the idea that the only way to clean up an infected windows box is to reinstall everything from scratch. It takes me about 30 minutes of work to clean up the worst infected windows computer I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot). That's 30 minutes of work for me and about a day or so of work for the computer. Saves the end user a ton of work reinstalling everything, though.
I mean, I know that windows can be stupidly convoluted sometimes compared to unix, but it seems like the "fresh install of windows solves everything" crowd tends to be people who just don't understand what's going on under the hood enough to actually solve the problem they've run into.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Heh. 2 months ago, I retired my main workstation, a Win2000 box that has been running since 2001 doing software development, CAD and whatnot. I never had needed to reinstall the software in all that time.
The problem is that preserving all settings is very likely to preserve a lot of settings that are either inappropriate or just useless under the new OS. You spend more time weeding out those, and never gettting them all, than if you just reinstalled all your applications.
What would be really nice would be a way to inspect each application's setings and have the choice of whether to use them. Those primitive OSes that use text ini files allow that... but not the marvellously monolithic Windows registry.
Okay, so I'm on XP at the moment... Just what incentive is there for me to upgrade, exactly?
I just ran through the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor program, purely out of interest. Technically, I shouldn't have to update any hardware, though it didn't like my version of OpenOffice. Hardware's the biggest hurdle usually - I didn't plug every USB device I have in (as it recommends) but I don't see there being problems. However, the hassle associated with an "upgrade" is too much:
- I would have to wipe my machine clean (I've never done that on a personal computer, only for work... I've reimaged from backups, or converted a blank partition over to Linux, but never had to wipe an operating system off just to upgrade).
- I would have to reinstall ALL of my programs, settings, drivers, etc. that took me MONTHS to set up (seriously, I still have config files and reg files from programs that I set up ten years ago because they took a long time to get them how I like them).
- I lose quite a few little interface tweaks that I like to use.
- I gain some features that I really *can't* imagine myself using, and some that I can't imagine *anyone* really using.
- I gain a chance to remove Internet Explorer, that I don't use anyway.
I'm simplifying horribly, but what do I actually *gain* in real terms? Slightly updated hardware support? Maybe, but I haven't found anything that doesn't work on XP yet. Slightly better performance? Most probably drowned out by the fact that I only *just* qualify to run Windows 7 on this machine anyway, whereas I'm way over XP's comfort zone. Does it actually *do* anything that my current OS doesn't (that I will *ever* use), or is it just a case of "version apathy" and that when I get a new computer, it'll be Windows 7 and until then I might as well stick with what I have? Just the reinstall is hassle enough for me to say that I'll leave it until I get a new computer (which is a rare event for me).
I don't remember it being this way for Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 or Windows 98 (and their various editions). I have even upgraded from 98 to XP without problems before now (although it's not something I would just assume would work). There's no technical reason why I can't upgrade, it's purely political, but even assuming I could: What do I gain for my money?
When the cost of an operating system would actually see *more* benefit by being used to purchase RAM, drive space, peripherals, etc. I fail to see the attraction. Of course those with MSDN or money to burn will "upgrade" and tell us all how wonderful it is, but I can't see ANYTHING here... I didn't even see anything in Vista (which is universally loathed by the non-techy people who come to me for support). Even the usual press is quite "dumbed down" about Windows 7 - there was an article on the BBC News website, that was about it, and most of that was telling how people "can't upgrade". I remember a big press fuss over Vista but it doesn't seem present this time around.
Are people finally plateauing in what they expect from an OS?