David Flynn 06 May 2009, 8:00 AM (6 hours 42 minutes ago.)
Users of XP will quality for a free or low-cost upgrade to Windows 7, but they won’t be able to install 7 without first nuking XP from their hard drive.
Earlier this week we reported on how the just-released Windows 7 Release Candidate will permit upgrades only from Windows Vista rather than any previous beta build of the OS-in-progress (although Microsoft was kind enough to share a clever work-around).
The final version of Windows 7 will adopt the same protocol: you either upgrade from Vista or do a clean install. Yet Microsoft is making one concession for XP loyalists: they’ll be eligible for a special upgrade price on Windows 7.
That price remains under wraps, as does the pricing for all Windows 7 SKUs, but it’s an unusual move because OS upgrade deals are usually restricted to the immediate previous version.
In this case that’s the much-criticised Windows Vista, which many users chose to avoid and stick with XP – hence Microsoft’s need to cast the upgrade net a little wider.
The catch is that XP users will need to save their data, wipe their hard drive and load XP as a clean install – so technically this isn’t really a ‘upgrade’ in the traditional sense, even though Microsoft is calling its XP incentive an ‘upgrade licence’. But it’ll be cheaper than buying Windows 7 off the shelf.
that's a lot of stuff at stake. Upgrade maybe.
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