Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Product Key | Download Original Copy Of Windows 7 With Service Pack

To perform a clean install of Windows 7 with Upgrade media, you need to install Windows 7 once using the Upgrade Setup disk, but without entering your product key during Setup. Then, once you’ve loaded the Windows 7 desktop for the first time, you can run Setup again from within Windows 7 and choose Upgrade (even though you’ll be “upgrading” to the exact same version of Windows 7).

Allow Setup to complete a second time, and then you’re good to go: you can enter your product key after the second Setup routine is completed and activate Windows 7 successfully.

Note: If you need the ISO file to perform Clean installation, please refer the last section of this post to download, Windows 7 ISO Files from Microsoft.

Here are the complete instructions:

Step 1: Install Windows 7: Boot your PC with the Windows 7 Upgrade DVD. After the preliminary loading screen, install Windows 7 normally. When you are prompted to enter your product key, leave the product key field blank, deselect the option titled “Automatically activate Windows when I’m online,” and then continue.

Setup will install Windows as documented in the “Clean Install” section earlier in this chapter. (Refer to that section for a complete rundown of the process.) Once Windows 7 is successfully installed and you are logged on, you’ll be presented with your new Windows 7 desktop. Don’t get too comfortable, however, as you’re about to do it all again.

Step 2: Upgrade from Windows 7…to Windows 7:

If you try to activate Windows now, it will fail because you’ve performed a clean install of Windows 7 and you have only an Upgrade product key. That means you have 30 days during which you can run this non-activated version of Windows 7.

But why wait 30 days?

According to Microsoft, Upgrade versions of Windows 7 support upgrading from “a compliant version of Windows, such as Windows 7, Windows Vista, or Windows XP.” Well, you just installed Windows 7, so why not just upgrade from that install? That’s right: you’re going to upgrade the non-activated clean install you just performed, which will provide you with a version of the OS that you can, in fact, activate.

To do this, just select Computer and double-click on the icon for the DVD drive that contains the Windows 7 Upgrade media. Run Setup again, this time from within Windows 7. When you get to the appropriate phase of Setup, choose the Upgrade option. Windows will install as before, though you might notice that it takes quite a bit longer this time. (Upgrade installs take up to 60 minutes, compared to 20 minutes or so with clean installs, and reboot at least one additional time.)

When Setup is completed, enter the username and password you created during the first install and log on to Windows.

Now that you’ve “upgraded” Windows 7, product activation will actually work.

To activate Windows 7 manually and immediately (unless you told it to do so during setup), from the Start menu, type activate in Start Menu Search, launch Windows Activation, and click Activate Windows online now.

You can now download new Windows 7 ISO images that comes with the Service Pack 1 (SP1) pre-installed. That means you don’t need to download all the windows updates for a fresh new install, this will save you many hours after your fresh install of Windows 7. It is strongly recommended to download the new ISO that comes with Service Pack 1 pre-installed if you need to install any Windows 7. As usual, the list below are all from official Microsoft retailer download links.

Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 x86 ISO 32-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58996.iso

Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 x64 ISO 64-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58997.iso

Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 x86 ISO 32-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59183.iso

Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 x64 ISO 64-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59186.iso

Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1 x86 ISO 32-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59463.iso

Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1 x64 ISO 64-bit

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59465.iso