Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade, Home Premium to Professional (License only)

What customers say about Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade, Home Premium to Professional (License only)?

1. 123 of 127 people found the following review helpful

   
   Users wishing to invoke XP take great care before buying Pro Upgrade., 8 April 2010

   By 

   John Mike (United Kingdom) –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?)

   This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade, Home Premium to Professional (License only) (Software)

   Dear All,

   I recently purchased a new Toshiba laptop after annoying the sales staff with several visits and much debate and much research. The reason for my care in the selection process is that I have a number of very expensive program suites that only currently run on XP Pro and I had to be absolutely certain that I could continue to use them.

   The Toshiba shipped with Windows 7 Premium 64 bit. I purchased the anytime upgrade from Amazon. The installtion of the upgrade was successful. It then transpired that in order to utilize the XP Mode you have to down load The Windows 7 XP Mode and The Windows 7 Virtual PC and The Windows XP Mode update.

   The Windows 7 systen then proceeds to tell you that these facilities will only work if your processor has Hardware Assisted Virtualisation capability and this has been switched on in the Bios.

   Needless to say The Toshiba DOES NOT have this capability – seemingly rendering the software purchased completely useless.

   This issue was raised with Microsoft and Toshiba and had a 3 hour telephone conference with them. It was found that is NOT an absolute requirement to have a HAV capable processor it is however desireable. As far as I understand it once you have completed the 3 steps indicated on the MS web page the key is return to stage 1 and down load and install the Windows 7 XP mode again. Unfortunately this is not mentioned anywhere.

   At last – very grey and distressed and at least a billion brian cells later – we have software that appears to be functioning.

   I think that the upgrade is extremely poorly marketed. There is no hint that these problems can arise from any of the online marketing information supplied. When talking with the various help desks even the manufacturers help desk they have no idea what you are talking about when Hardware Assisted Virtualisation is mentioned.

   I am sure that there will be numerous other laptops and pc’s out there that are not Hardware Assisted Virtualisation compatible yet there is absolutely no mention what so ever of this on the packaging or in the blurb for the anytime upgrade. Can I suggest that potential users download the Hardware Assisted Virtualisation Detection tool from the Microsoft Web site
   they will then know if this upgrade is going to work without issue. Obviously they can still use the upgrade but as in my experience they may well find that they have work quite hard to make it happen.

   Hope this review helps others avoid the problem.

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2. 38 of 39 people found the following review helpful

   
   Wanna run your old software on Windows 7??, 12 Jan 2011

   By 

   Geoff the SFCrowsnest guru –

   Amazon Verified Purchase(What is this?)

   This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade, Home Premium to Professional (License only) (Software)

   When my old laptop died a blue screen death back in November (2010 in case the review is here for a couple years), I had already done the research about the different versions of Windows 7 and already knew about the WXP module and assumed it would be readily available if I needed it, providing I had a computer with 4gB RAM to run it on.

   I got the right RAM size from the start which saved a lot of problems but it does make me wonder how many people got it wrong or not know they bought their computers, especially laptops, under spec and have to get their computer memory changed. Again, an added expense that you might not have expected.

   However, practically all new computers come with Windows 7 Premiere and to use the WXP Module you need Windows 7 Pro update first which is an added expense. However, when you balance out the cost of replacing old software whose only fault is running on 32 bit computers or on an earlier Windows that its compatability adjustment won’t make it work and much early software isn’t available anymore then the cost of the upgrade is put into perspective. Amazon when I was looking for the best price had the best price and half of normal retail.

   What you are actually buying is a key that will allow you to download the W7 Pro upgrade. Once that’s done, you can download the WXP module off their site.

   As I’ve been discussing the WXP module, let’s give some detail about that for the newcomers.
   If anything, installing this was also the first time I encountered a problem. You’re presented with three files to load in order and after doing it, there was a day fretting between other chores when it kept asking for something that didn’t appear to turn on. I also have a mantra that if I have a problem then others have had before me, so look for solutions first. If in doubt, re-install. Oddly, it only took a re-installation of the WXP Module to put things right. Knowing that might save you some phone calls and a quick remedy you can do yourself.

   Suddenly, up popped the WXP Module which resembles the original Windows XP and you can happily install anything that wouldn’t run in W7 and IT WORKS!!! I even got a few games that I couldn’t even run on Vista working. I’ve still got to find a patch for `System Shock II’ to work properly but that’s a minor problem now not a major one I had previously. The real purpose was to run old software like the SF Encyclopaedia and even Cinemedia’96. You can also leave it in the background and go back and work on W7 so flipping between the two Windows is very easy. About the only thing I have that didn’t work in either Windows was Britannica 2006 but as the 2010 version didn’t cost that much, it seemed cheap compared to what I would had to have done to get the extra RAM.

   Overall, despite its extra price to upgrade to W7 Pro, the overall savings in buying new software of over-relying on the Net for everything evens out the cost. I’m not sure what other differences there are between the two versions of W7. I wasn’t using Premiere for more than a week and Pro ever since. Whichever, a lot of it was just tweaking to something easier to recognise and remembering that ‘Computer’ is the new name for ‘Windows Explorer’ and its a lot easier to anchor it on the menu bar.

   Let’s hope in future that Microsoft will remember that the abiity to use earlier programs should be included with any of its operating systems and not purely as an extra. In the meantime, hope the info here can help other people.

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3. 14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

   
   The worst product from Microsoft, 29 Dec 2011

   By 

   gppp362 –

   This review is from: Microsoft Windows 7 Anytime Upgrade, Home Premium to Professional (License only) (Software)

   I bought this product to upgrade an HP computer from Home Premium 64 Bit to Pro 64 Bit. Sounds simple? It ought to be on a brand new computer with nothing on it.

   The instructions are rubbish. The product goes through the motions of upgrading but fails at the last minute with a very unhelpful message of “Anytime Upgrade was not successful”. No reason, nothing! Try it again and it becomes an invalid key. Rebooted the computer and it went through the upgrade booting back into Windows Pro like it should have done. No message – nothing! Do I know what is going on? No. Do I trust it? No. Because something didn’t finish properly.

   Thinking I did something wrong, I went through a System Restore and reinstall of OS from Home Premium all over again with the same exact result.

   It has installed Windows XP Virtual Machine so it passes authentication as Windows Pro. But I have not tried connnecting it to a domain yet. That is the real test. Anything ever go wrong with this machine, it will on the back of my mind that this did not complete properly. That is not nice to live with on a brand new machine.

   It cant be the machine if people are reporting the same problem on Toshiba, Dell and me with HP.

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