Can’t think what else it could, unless it is to do with 32 bit and 64 bit setup packages being different….

I can’t say it was too much trouble, after the initial worry about it being corrupted somehow the workarounds were relatively straightforward.

a) I did not really want to take the chance! and,
b) I never wanted to upgrade in-place, for the reasons outlined above.

I do hope it works easily for msot people, and that the reported incidents were the minority.

I also got Win 7 through the Student offer. If you just run the .exe file it all installs and works out fine. You even get asked for your serial key.

I had no problems here ‘upgrading’ from the Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit using the .exe.

“The Windows 7 launch seems to have gone off mostly roses and sunbeams, but we’re hearing today that quite a few people have had issues installing the downloadable $29 student upgrade edition on 32-bit Vista — apparently the file doesn’t unpack to an ISO, but instead to an executable and two bundles that don’t function properly, and eventually the process errors out with a 64-bit app trying to launch on 32-bit systems. It’s possible to create an ISO using some hackery, but the install process seems to be 50/50 after that — we’ve heard of both success and further crashes. For it’s part, Microsoft says it’s looking into things, so hopefully a newly repackaged download will be forthcoming — every party has its ups and downs, right?”

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/23/windows-7-student-upgrade-installer-not-working-for-many/

The email I received linked to a FAQ which said both in-place upgrade and custom install were possible.

I think that it is better to offer an ISO download that people could put on a DVD and have easy access to rather than a download version which, let’s face it, can have a number of problems (link down, slow broadband, file gets deleted, etc).

More to the point, I think it is a sensible practice to allow a full clean install and, if necessary, just require proof of having a previous version of Windows. There are so many pitfalls to an upgrade in-place method, though I admit that an awful lot of people could do it hassle-free.

I cannot speak to how it would work on XP either, I understand there you would have to do a custom install, which would again pose a problem with the download pack offered.

You get an .exe file which is used to unpack the .box archives

Given that the student website only offers upgrade versions, I think the intention is that most people will go from Vista HP to W7 HP and do an in-place upgrade.

I took an alternative root of installing W7 onto a second partition on my hard drive. The multi-boot was automatically set up for me so I have equal access to W7 and Vista (though W7 takes boot priority).

If you want to do a clean install on a single partition then move the exe and box files to a USB drive (I put it on an external hard drive) and do it from there.

It’s not designed to be used like a CD install and they offer you the opportunity to buy a CD too for only £9 more.

And yes, I did back up to an external HDD. I was going from Win 7 RC, which meant hunting for a different fix than most used just to complicate things.

Umm: you backed up your XP machine before you did this, right?

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

It’s a regedit manoeuvre, but it works for me.

So no massive hassle in the end, but both problems could easily have been avoided.

At least Windows 7 is nice.