I had Windows XP Professional installed in a VMWare virtual machine on my Mac. I bought Windows 7 Professional to replace it, and installed it on a fresh virtual machine, then deleted the old XP VM once the new Windows 7 VM was working alright.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make sure to activate the new VM first. I thought I’d bought the full version, but it looks like I’ve bought an upgrade version, because when Windows 7 prompted me to activate today, it said it couldn’t, because I’d bought an upgrade version and done a clean install with it.
As far as I can tell from Microsoft’s help, I can’t activate my fresh Windows 7 install. To make it activate properly, I need to reinstall Windows XP, then reinstall my Windows 7 upgrade on top of that.
Are they f—ing kidding? I’ve spent a fair bit of time setting up my new Windows 7 VM. Now I have to trash all that and start again? I’ve still got my copy of Windows XP, and the license key for it. Can’t I just enter that somewhere and have the damn thing work?
Answer
Yes, it's possible, but it can get messy.
Here's a fairly in-depth guide:
http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media.aspx
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